


The Mask I Have Outworn

by ladyeternal



Series: Roses 'verse [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Porn, Canonical Character Death, Dubious Consent, Episode: s03e11 Mystery Spot, First Time, M/M, Minor Character Death, Pre-Slash, Tissue Warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-24
Updated: 2011-03-24
Packaged: 2018-02-04 23:56:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1798018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyeternal/pseuds/ladyeternal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Trickster seems to have killed Dean for real in his grotesque version of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107048/?ref_=nv_sr_2"><b><i>Groundhog Day</i></b></a>, Sam knows it to be a lie and offers the Trickster a deal of his own in exchange for his brother’s life. The Trickster had no idea that in the wake of the deal’s consummation, the one who learned a lesson from the trick would be himself.</p><p>Now, the Trickster finds himself faced with two choices: leave the Winchester brothers to their Fate, stay hidden from forces he’d been avoiding for centuries and survive the coming battle any way he can, or tell the Winchester brothers the truth of the prophecy into which they were born, expose secrets that could cost him his immortal life, and dare to rewrite Destiny… all for the sake of love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Mask I Have Outworn - Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: If you’ve watched all of Season Five, none.
> 
> Warnings: Keep tissues on hand.
> 
> Disclaimer: If I owned Supernatural, certain events would NEVER have happened and there would be unabashed pr0n. I’m only playing with this world for my own amusement and the free entertainment of others.
> 
> Author’s Note: From concept to completion and beyond, this fic would not have been possible without the tireless support of my truly exceptional beta, [morganoconner](http://archiveofourown.org/users/morganoconner/pseuds/morganoconner). BB, thank you for being so steadfast, patient, honest and willing to put up with my crazy.
> 
> I also cannot say enough about my amazing artist, [krystalicekitsu](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Krystalicekitsu/pseuds/Krystalicekitsu). She is as talented an artist as she is an author, and she quite literally pulled the images behind my words right out of my head. Go check out the EPIC artwork she did for me, both for [the story](http://krystalicekitsu.livejournal.com/164346.html) and [my fanmix](http://community.livejournal.com/aeternitas_nox/10263.html) soundtrack.

~ooooOOOoooo~

 

“Bobby?”

The corpse was still, lifeless. Blood should have been pouring out of the stake wound if it was real. But it should have vanished if it was a trick. Sam felt his chest contract. Something wasn’t right… nothing made sense… “Bobby! Bobby!”

A shimmer of air. The body vanished before his eyes, leaving the evergreen stake teetering on its point for a moment before it clattered to the ground, unspoiled by what should have been Bobby’s lifeblood. Sam spun as it levitated and flew past him, directly into the waiting hand of the Trickster.

Bright honey-amber eyes. Nearly demonic smile. Sunset gold hair. Sam took a deep breath, a thrill of adrenaline and anxiety lacing beneath the numbness of grief and anger. He refused to acknowledge the healthy dose of fear that felt like a caged animal in his gut, or the faint twinge of attraction the creature had sparked since they’d first met him in Springfield. He could do this. He had to do this… whatever it took, he would make the demi-god give Dean back his life.

“You’re right,” the Trickster purred, a smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth. “I was just screwing with ya. Pretty good, though, Sam; smart. Let me tell you: whoever said Dean was the dysfunctional one has never seen _you_ with a sharp object in your hands. Ho-oly Full Metal Jacket.”

“Bring him back.” Tears burned in Sam’s eyes, the words coming out practically in a croak. He wanted… hoped the creature would simply show mercy… would be swayed by Sam simply abandoning pride and begging for his brother’s life.

“Who? Dean?” The exaggerated innocence on the Trickster’s face belied any chance that Sam might have an easy time convincing him to do anything. “Didn’t my girl send you the flowers? Dean’s dead; he ain’t coming back. His soul’s downstairs doing the Hellfire Rumba as we speak.”

Sam flinched at the thought, even though he was reasonably sure it wasn’t actually true. The Trickster had killed Dean over seven hundred times, only to restart the day and Dean’s life at his whim. There was no way even a demi-god could do that without being able to control what happened to Dean’s soul after each death. His brother’s spirit was in the Trickster’s possession, one way or another.

He didn’t want to think about the fact that if they couldn’t find a way to free Dean from his contract, Dean would be cast into Hell and torment, and wherever the Trickster had Dean now was likely a far kinder fate. He couldn’t just abandon Dean, to the Trickster or to Hell. He had to save him, no matter the cost. “Just take us back to that Tuesday… or, Wednesday… when it all started,” he pleaded, trying not to break down in tears. “Please. We won’t come after you, I swear.”

The Trickster’s eyebrow shot up in sardonic disbelief. “You swear.”

“Yes!”

For a moment, the Trickster hesitated, casting his gaze at the ceiling. “I don’t know. Even if I could-”

“You can!” Sam refused to believe that it wasn’t possible, that what the creature had wrought could not be undone. It was a deity, not a spirit or monster. It had the power to unwill what it had willed.

“True,” the Trickster admitted. “But that don’t mean I should.” When Sam’s face contorted in pain, the Trickster felt a twinge of… something. An old emotion, unused for centuries, flared inside, reminding him of another life. Something like sympathy. Something like… he shook it off even as it compelled words he’d never intended to speak. “Sam, there’s a lesson here that I’ve been trying to drill into that… freakish Cro-Magnon skull of yours.”

“Lesson?” Sam blinked, confused. He knew the Trickster’s games and pranks ultimately had a message behind them, but for the life of him, he couldn’t understand what the Trickster might have wanted beyond revenge for their last encounter. “What lesson?”

Anger flared now, Sam’s obliviousness kindling the embers that had smoldered since the Trickster had first encountered the brothers. Was the boy blind? Could he really not see beyond his brother’s situation, grasp the danger that all of this posed? “This obsession to save Dean? The way you two keep sacrificing yourselves for each other? _Nothing good comes out of it._ Just blood and pain. Dean’s your weakness; bad guys know it, too. It’s gonna be the death of you, Sam.”

Sam’s face contorted in pain, but the Trickster almost didn’t notice. With a will, he pulled himself back from the boy, stepping away and twirling the stake through the air. It was a careless gesture, covering the fierce, sudden desire to say more. To betray himself. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t get too involved, that he wasn’t sticking his neck out for anyone, especially not the Winchester brothers. “Sometimes you just gotta let people go.”

But Sam couldn’t let go. Couldn’t just abandon the only person who had ever really been there for him. Couldn’t let Dean die any more than Dean could let him. “He’s my brother,” he protested, the words nearly choked unintelligibly. He wouldn’t break down. If this didn’t work, he had a Plan B. And he was fairly sure it _would_ work.

 _As if that would really cut any ice here. As if he’s the only one in this who’s lost or stands to lose a brother._ “Yup. And like it or not, this is what life’s gonna be like without him.”

“Please.” Sam pulled in every ounce of courage he had left, tamped down on the fear still trying to claw its way out, and stepped closer. The Trickster tracked him with those molten amber eyes, never moving. Sam wasn’t trying to intimidate, knowing that would be useless. But he wouldn’t let the Trickster see him afraid. “I’ll make a deal with you, if that’s what it takes.”

“I’m not a demon, Sam,” the Trickster spat. The contempt was heavy in his tone, his eyes sparking dangerously.

“But I think you’ll deal,” Sam persisted, his tone low and careful. He wasn’t trying to be anything but desperate to save his brother, because the Trickster wouldn’t have believed anything else. “I think you’ll want what I’m offering in exchange, because I think you get bored far too easily to ignore what you’d get out of it.”

Something in Sam’s posture… his tone and his bright hazel eyes… the set of those lips that were far too inviting for the Trickster’s peace of mind… _It can’t be… he wouldn’t go that far… would he?_ “And what’s that, Sasquatch?”

“Me.”

 _Tahariel’s tears… I think he actually means it._ Both eyebrows shot up, openly challenging the sincerity of the statement. “You… how, exactly? I don’t need a servant and if you’re offering me your soul, then you’ve clearly missed the plot entirely.”

“Me… in your bed.” Sam’s mouth had gone dry and he was fairly sure his hands were shaking. But he wouldn’t back down and wouldn’t allow himself to blush. This would work; it had to. “Twenty-four hours, however you want me. And then you let Dean go, put us back on that Wednesday, and make sure Dean doesn’t remember anything about being dead.”

The Trickster’s eyes went wide in obvious astonishment. _This_ was unexpected. Nothing about Sam had indicated this was anywhere in the cards. “You don’t mean that,” he breathed, not daring to move. The offer was tempting, too much so, and he wouldn’t be taken in by Sam’s gambit so easily. “Not even your libidinous big brother would offer himself up that way.”

“I’m not Dean,” Sam said evenly. “And you’re not a demon. You’re a demi-god who can create tangible illusions out of thin air. You can make anything you want… _anyone_ you want… but you can’t fabricate someone that challenges you. Any partner you construct is a doll, preprogrammed even in their spontaneity.” One step closer, into the Trickster’s personal space. The shorter man didn’t flick an eyelash, gazing up at him with molten eyes. “You want what I’m offering you: one day with someone who’s willing and isn’t a chimera. So yeah, I do mean it. Twenty-four hours, however you want me. Starting as soon as you say yes, if you want. But when it’s over, I get my brother back.”

* * *

He shouldn’t. The situation was contained. With Dean’s soul kept safely beyond Hell’s reach, everything was effectively stymied. Sam didn’t understand that… wasn’t willing to look beyond his want of his brother and put the clues together…

Maybe he was just being a fool, trying to stall against what was about to be unleashed. Fate never liked being denied, and she was a vindictive bitch if you pissed her off. Sooner or later, Hell would rise to claim its due _and_ his skin as the price of being made to wait. Skin he’d spent centuries preserving at any cost.

And then there was the temptation before him. Sam Winchester. Expressive hazel eyes that would look so beautiful lust-blown and staring up into his own. He would bet they turned the color of warm sherry when this glorious creature was aroused. Statuesque, solidly muscled. Long lean limbs that went on for _miles_ … broad shoulders and tapered hips, silken hair that just begged for fingers running through it and a mouth built for shaping the sounds carried on a voice made for love in the dark…

If he was damned anyway, there was nothing wrong with enjoying the ride out. Especially with such a stunningly gorgeous young stud at his disposal.

A snap of his fingers, and Mystery Spot melted away. Sam startled just a little, taking a step back and surveying his new surroundings. Fire crackling on a stone hearth. Large curtained windows overlooking a mountain valley at twilight. Sweet-smelling wood walls and plush carpets that looked soft enough to sleep on.

The nearby bed looked softer yet. Large, canopied with great curtains tied at the posts. A mountain of pillows piled against the headboard and sheets Sam would’ve bet the Impala were pure silk. Everything about it looked inviting, luxurious, more comfortable than anything Sam had ever slept on in his life.

“I can take us someplace else, if you want,” the Trickster offered. There was an undercurrent of dark lust beneath the gamine tone that sent shivers down Sam’s spine. “But we won’t be interrupted here.”

Turning to face him, Sam refused to let his hands shake. Dean was facing a death sentence unflinching. Sam could take this. Sam _would_ take this. “Whatever. This is… yeah. Whatever.”

The Trickster’s eyebrow quirked. Sam’s neutral, almost gallows tone was less than flattering; even if this was a business arrangement, a _little_ enthusiasm wouldn’t hurt. “I don’t know what exactly you’re expecting here, kid, but ‘willing’ was part of your offer. I’ve found ‘comfortable’ usually helps with that part.”

Sam shucked off his jacket, trying to keep calm. There was a flutter of panic in his chest that he had to force back down. “I’m fine. You saying yes?”

A challenge rang in Sam’s tone. A hint of what he _really_ offered. The Trickster grinned. “Oh, yeah.”

Heart suddenly thundering in his chest, Sam unbuttoned the cuffs of his sleeves. “My brother?”

“Good as new and fighting trim, soon as we’re done.” The Trickster paced closer, a predator scenting his prey. “As agreed.”

“What do I call you?”

“I’ve got lots of names,” the Trickster teased. Sam’s fingers were unfastening his shirt from the bottom up, the shifting fabric offering tantalizing glimpses of washboard abs and hips that cried out to be marked.

“I’m not just calling you ‘Trickster’,” Sam protested. “You’re gonna fuck me, I want a name.”

There was something in the ferocity of the mortal’s tone that had him softening inside. “Loki,” he heard himself say, surprised by the gentleness in his own voice. “Call me Loki.” Sam nodded as he closed the distance between them, the young hunter’s face an unreadable stone mask. “Sam…”

“Don’t, Loki.” Sam’s fingers popped open Loki’s shirt buttons, his hand sliding beneath the soft cotton undershirt to flatten over the skin beneath. The godling was warm to the touch, skin smooth under his fingertips as they splayed around the curve of his ribs. A frisson of that heat seemed to flare up Sam’s arm, feeding the undercurrent of attraction that Sam had tried to ignore since Springfield. The Trickster’s amber eyes fluttered, a quiet sound escaping lips that Sam was sure would taste like candy. He didn’t want to find out. Didn’t want to feel more than was here.

Loki swayed forward, catching Sam’s waist. Heat bloomed, radiating from those slender hands, intensifying friction when the godling’s thumbs rubbed along the peak of his hips, spiraling down Sam’s nerves and giving little doubt that his body would cooperate with the terms he’d offered.

 _For Dean._ Sam’s eyes closed when Loki’s mouth brushed a searing, open kiss across his nipple. _I have to do this for Dean…_

A wet, rough tongue laved the hardening nub Loki had just kissed. A moan rolled up out of Sam on instinct, heartfelt and honest. It was easier than Sam had thought it would be to let the smaller man’s hands roam over his skin, pushing and fussing until Sam’s clothes came away like unwanted wrapping on a hotly anticipated gift. Sam kept backing away, unconsciously drawing closer to the king-sized bed, trying to undress the Trickster and getting his hands batted away with an impatient sound every time. “Loki…”

“In a minute,” he replied, almost absently. With a negligent push, Sam’s calves hit the bed and the hunter dropped onto the mattress, making it easy to remove the cumbersome cotton layers that comprised Sam’s jeans and boxers, socks and boots pulled away with the rest. He wanted to look his fill… wanted to see…

Sure enough, Sam was just as beautiful as he’d imagined. For all that he’d kept tabs on Sam while they were within this little folded pocket of time, he’d never tormented himself by spying on the boy’s private moments. It hadn’t been the point, and he wouldn’t have been content to just look. Not when he could have taken any form he wanted and touched… he was glad he hadn’t now. This…

Dense muscle cloaked in golden tan flesh, acres of it that begged for the touch of his hands… his mouth actually watering at the idea of tasting… of trailing lips and tongue across those sculpted planes and hearing the little hitches in Sam’s breath…

And then Sam was reaching out with those ridiculously long arms, grabbing him around the waist and yanking him until he stood with one leg between Sam’s and Sam could get leverage to pull off Loki’s shirts, to run long fingers over deceptively strong muscles. There was something like curiosity written across those finely carved features, an almost clinically inquisitive slant that shouldn’t have been as enticing as he found it. Loki groaned as Sam slowly explored, weapon-callused fingertips ghosting across his skin.

Hands came up to Sam’s shoulders, bracing, pressing him back. Sam let it happen, his heart skipping as he felt a shimmer and then Loki’s slender, completely naked body was lowering against his own, deft hands skimming across his ribs and hips while satin lips mouthed hot kisses along the hollow of his throat.

Whatever Sam had been expecting, it hadn’t been this. Loki was taking his time, savoring Sam’s every nuance, unhurried and slightly possessive in ways that made Sam’s nerves sing. He’d tried not to consider whether Loki would take this slowly… tried not to think about what he’d be getting himself into if Loki took the deal. Anything would be worth it… no price was too high, if it meant getting Dean back.

Except this didn’t feel like a business transaction. Loki’s fingers danced along his skin, his tongue decadently dexterous as it lapped over the lines of Sam’s body, limning a path between love bites that had Sam’s blood surging in his veins. He loved foreplay, even if he hadn’t been able to really indulge in it since Jess…

Remembrance was a cold slap of reality, the comparison as stark as the full moon in a clear night sky. Loki wasn’t Jess. The Trickster wasn’t lavishing attention on him because they were in love. Sam needed to remember that. Needed to keep that firmly fixed in his mind.

It was far too easy for him to get emotionally entangled with someone he was physically involved with. Sexual attraction and emotional attachment had been twined into a Gordian knot for Sam’s entire life, and that would only cause him damage now. He needed to get through this with his heart intact.

When Loki made a pleased, contented little hum from somewhere below Sam’s navel, nibbling at and then blowing cool air over the sensitive skin and causing Sam to startle and moan, Sam wasn’t sure that would be possible. His hands fisted into the sheets and he moaned the Trickster’s name, his hips shifting, aching flesh seeking the warm mouth it knew was nearby…

A warm chuckle. “Easy, kiddo… we’ve got all the time in the world.” Hot breath curling around him, pulling another half-cry from Sam’s lips. “You’d be amazed what I can pack into a day…”

Long fingers laced into sunset hair and tightened. Just a little. Just enough. “Don’t remind me.”

It backed him off. Sam had been hunting him for the last six months, after all; had been willing to put an evergreen stake through what the hunter assumed was him disguised as the brothers’ grizzled pal. His erstwhile lover here had a temper and seriously above-average skills in the killing department, and he really didn’t want Sam thinking just now.

In furtherance of that end, Loki quirked a small smirk as he wrapped his right hand around Sam’s arousal, grip firm and warm and tugging just a little. Sam’s breath hitched and the smirk widened. “You’re sexy when you’re threatening my life.”

A reply started to form; Sam was sure of it. But then Loki’s long, wet tongue trailed a lingering stripe from the wide root of Sam’s erection up to the glistening tip and the neurons misfired, the words emerging from his throat in an unrecognizable garble of need. His fingers tightened reflexively in Loki’s hair, breath shallowing as Loki lapped at him. Tiny little licks that sent coils of electric heat spiraling up Sam’s spine. Slow swipes that seemed never to end, just circle the ridge and draw back down only to curl around the base and start over again, repeating endlessly until Sam whimpered and bucked and keened in the back of his throat.

The human barely noticed that tongue stroking over two fingers as well as his erection, slicking over them just before they snuck beneath Sam’s hips. Sam couldn’t stop the gasp that caught in his throat as one finger pressed in, just breaching tight muscle that clenched on reflex; had to will himself to relax even as Loki made a half-choked sound in his throat that hummed along skin stretched taut over tumescent flesh.

“Sam…” His name was a groan on those talented lips, Loki’s free hand gripping and molding the firm curve of one buttock as that finger worked deeper, stroking in slow crooks and shooting hot sparks through Sam’s veins. “You gotta relax, gorgeous…”

It took a measure of pure will to comply, to make himself ignore the intrusion and force involuntary muscles to give ground. A second finger worked in with the first and Sam was fighting back panic again, angling his grip in Loki’s hair to make it seem like the buck of his hips away from the scissoring digits inside him was really just towards the heat of that sinfully tempting mouth… that temptation the only thing keeping his arousal alive…

Loki indulged him, mouthing kisses up the thick vein, following the pulse beat with flickering licks that had Sam gasping at the end of every breath and panting the godling’s name. Sam was presenting him with a challenge, all right: his body apparently couldn’t decide between want and anger, the resulting tension in Sam’s whole body making Loki fight for every inch of give in the tightest muscles he’d ever felt.

Well and so: the Trickster had ways around that.

Sam let out a startled cry as something seemed to melt through him: a soothing glow, like moonlight bathing his face after a salt-and-burn, banishing some of the persistent throb and humming through his veins. One leg slid up, half-wrapping around Loki’s torso to allow better access, and Loki’s fingers slid just a fraction deeper, shifting and scissoring and pressing until they brushed something so sensitive that Sam felt like firecrackers had been set off under his skin.

“That’s better,” Loki praised, brushing a kiss over Sam’s hip. “You’re so beautiful like this, Sam… just gorgeous…”

It surprised Sam to feel a blush staining his skin, since there couldn’t possibly be enough blood in his veins to sustain it. If Jess or Madison had ever thought so, they’d never said it, and unlike Dean, Sam had never been one for incidental liaisons. When Loki said things like that…

“Gorgeous…” he murmured again. His lips were sipping their way up Sam’s torso, taking their time, finding their way to one erect nipple and ghosting over it. Sam’s spine arched, pressing him up into the touch and pushing his hips against the hand still at work beneath them, a moan vibrating up in the hunter’s throat. Intrigued, Loki flicked his tongue over the nub, his fingertips stroking the nerve bundle within at the same time.

Sam’s fingers laced up into the godling’s hair as flame seemed to wash through every vein, his lover’s name an urgent keen breaking past his lips. He almost didn’t notice the fingers sliding out of him, the absence feeling vaguely hollow even as Loki’s mouth latched onto his nipple and suckled hard.

There was no way not to notice when the broad head of a slick erection slid into that hollow; not with the not-quite burn as he was stretched wider sending shockwaves up his spine. The panic he’d been fighting flared, muscles locking as the intrusion pushed deeper…

He needed to get control of this. Now. He wouldn't get through it otherwise.

Ignoring the burn, Sam twisted, rolling until their positions were reversed. Loki was jarred free of his body in the maneuver, staring up at Sam with startled, delighted golden eyes until Sam reached back. Those eyes rolled up and a long groan broke in the demi-god's throat as Sam caught Loki's erection in one large hand, folding away his roiling emotions and determinedly pressing back and down.

Something pulled, might have torn. Sam refused himself more than an indrawn breath, the sound of it lost in Loki’s groan as Sam sheathed him. It wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle; Loki had prepped him well and he’d pushed through the burn of overtaxed muscles for half his life. It was the intrusive pressure that felt like too much, that made his head swim and his muscles coil for want of rolling off. Sam ignored it, made himself push through and settle into a rhythm, riding Loki as Jessica had once ridden him. He could do this: could pleasure the godling so well that he wouldn’t renege, would bring Dean back to him.

He explored with his hands, airy caresses that made Loki moan and push up against him. It made the pressure worse, but Sam just rode it down, kept his eyes open and devouring the sight of the Trickster laid out beneath him, golden eyes shuttered in passion’s throes… abandoned and infinite and beautiful… Sam could easily admit that Loki had chosen a beautiful human form…

Nimble hands ran up Sam’s thighs; Sam intercepted them, catching Loki’s wrists and pushing them down onto the bed. He had to bend a little more; it changed the angle and his body tried to flinch in protest, the twinge running like an electric shock up his spine from where Loki was buried inside him.

He didn’t expect it, although he should have. Like everything else they hunted, Loki was far stronger than he appeared. As easily as turning over a cup, their positions were reversed, and Loki was staring down at him, golden eyes burning in that devilish face… searching… Sam stared back, pushed up with his hips no matter what protest his body offered…

A slow roll of Loki’s hips against his. Sam let out a gasp he couldn’t hold back as warmth suffused through him, stronger than before, when it had only been Loki’s touch his body had resisted. Muscles relaxed, let Loki deeper; it was all Sam could do not to wrap his arms around Loki as satin lips brushed his ear. “You promised… any way I want you.”

Another slow roll, this time pushing deep enough to hit the spot that made Sam’s vision flash white behind his eyes. Loki’s hands, urging his legs around that slim waist, stroking his thighs with feather light touches that Sam felt over every inch of his skin.

Sam quit fighting it. He’d offered this. Loki’d accepted. He’d deal with the emotional fallout later. Right now, it just felt good… better than anything really had in years. And Sam was tired of fighting fighting always fighting with nothing to show for it but a brother who didn’t care enough about him to stay alive and a graveyard in his heart…

His arms slid around Loki’s shoulders, his head falling back into the pillows. Loki rocked back; Sam arched up to meet him as he pushed in, welcoming it. This was easy. He hadn’t wanted it to be, but it was, because now he wasn’t sacrificing himself just to save his brother. Just being here, he’d saved Dean’s life. But here, in the moment, Loki taking over and thrusting deep and strong, this was something Sam could have… this one day, when he didn’t have to be alone in the dark.

When Loki whispered in his ear, filthy promises of what he would do to Sam as the day passed, Sam moaned his name and tightened his thighs around Loki’s waist.

When Loki changed the angle just enough, tagging that hyper-sensitive place Sam had never known he possessed until today with every stroke, Sam panted and keened, digging his fingers into Loki’s shoulders.

When Loki groaned that he was close, tried to snake a hand between them to help Sam along, Sam leaned up, catching the sensitive juncture between Loki’s jaw and throat in his teeth and nibbling. “Now, Loki. Right now.”

When Loki shuddered and came, liquid heat washing into Sam and butterfly kisses tracing Sam’s neck, Sam held him through it, tried not to think about the instinct to panic because the godling hadn’t used any kind of protection. He hadn’t thought to stipulate to that, but it was a little late to be protesting it now. There was time to bring it up later.

It wasn’t long before Loki was pressing his weight up off Sam, sliding out and gliding down in one fluid motion. Sam didn’t have time to even say the Trickster’s name before his mind registered nothing beyond a mouth of silken flame engulfing him, fingers teasing and caressing heavy, sensitive flesh, gliding further back and brushing over the still-stretched ring of muscle. Pleasure-pain flared at the base of his spine and Sam couldn’t hold back, hips jerking against Loki’s mouth as Loki drank him down.

By the time Sam’s world had righted itself again, Loki was resting his chin on Sam’s hip, gazing up at him with glowing amber eyes and a smirk that Sam once again wondered at the taste of. “You’re going to make me work for it, aren’t you?”

Body still throbbing, the power of the godling subsiding and leaving an ache inside Sam that he knew would only get worse, the hunter rolled and half sat up, lacing his fingers into Loki’s sunset hair. The Trickster groaned even as he shoved Sam’s hand away and tumbled the young mortal back into the mattress. Sam gasped when nimble fingers tugged at his nipples, leaning up to pinch a swift bite at the base of Loki’s collarbone. “That’s what I offered, right?”


	2. The Mask I Have Outworn - Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see Chapter One for warnings, disclaimers and notes.

~ooooOOOoooo~

 

How long it had been, Sam couldn’t really be sure. The Trickster could manipulate time however he wished, and Sam wouldn’t put it past the demigod to use that to his advantage in this little arrangement. One day… but how was Sam to know when that day ended in the arms of someone that could control the fabric of reality?

That was, of course, a secondary problem. The primary issue being that Sam couldn’t bring himself to care very much about knowing whether or not Loki was milking more time out of the deal than Sam had intended to give.

He should hate Loki for killing his brother almost more times than he could count. Should refuse to continue honoring their agreement until Loki provided some way to measure their time together. But Sam didn’t want to care. For two blurry, agonizing years’ worth of repeated Tuesdays, he’d been alone in awareness. For six months, he’d been alone in truth. No matter why Loki had agreed to this, he was more attentive and talented a lover than Sam had ever been with before, and the tender, if vigorous attentions of the Trickster god were rather efficiently finding every crack in Sam’s emotional armor and seeping through.

In reality, Sam had never been alone in his entire life. Even at Stanford, he’d had roommates before moving in with Jessica. Before Stanford, there had been Dean or their father. Sam had never been without someone to come home to, another person living in his back pocket.

Loki had given him a six-month preview of what life would be like without Dean. And no matter how short a hunter’s life usually was, Sam knew he was looking at decades of the same isolation if he couldn’t save Dean from Hell somehow. It was all too much, too painful to face, and Sam was so tired of being in pain.

So when Loki teased airy kisses over his skin…

Whispered decadent words of passion in a husky bedroom voice…

Nibbled with sharp teeth and laved with nimble tongue…

When Loki was thrusting deep and Sam was kept teetering on the edge of pleasure-pain for hours, part of him welcoming and abandoned and part of him unable to stop resisting… unable to stop holding back…

It was still enough to drown out almost all thought beyond this niche in time-space, where there was only the great canopied bed, the perpetually-roaring fire and they two, naked and entwined. Sam’s world had once again narrowed to a single living being, and it was enough. For now, it was enough.

* * *

It wasn’t enough. Sam had presented him with a true challenge, all right: the human quite simply wasn’t getting anywhere near orgasm with Loki buried inside him. It frustrated the Trickster, perplexed him. If he’d been thinking at all, he’d have wondered why it mattered to him so much. But for the first time in a very long time, something _did_ matter to him, and that was hearing his name breaking in Sam Winchester’s throat while the young human’s body spasmed in release beneath his own.

“You’re holding back on me, Sam,” he purred. “Must be I’ve lost my finesse somewhere.”

“Fishing for compliments won’t get you anywhere,” Sam grumbled. Loki was draped across him, trailing idle fingers over the faint purple marks he’d left on Sam’s skin over the last few hours. Sam wasn’t sure how he’d explain them to Dean when things were returned to normal; wasn’t sure himself how he felt about their presence.

Everything about Loki was so damnably _overwhelming_ , and Sam responded to that on a level that was scaring the Hell out of him. He didn’t know what it meant. Didn’t want to think about exactly how psychologically screwed he was going to be when this was over. So when they were resting between rounds of intensely passionate sex, like now, Loki’s magick erasing wet spots and the flush cooling from his skin, Sam left his eyes closed or looked anywhere but at the godling that tangled with him like a lazy housecat. He didn’t want to bolster the illusory intimacy between them. Was trying desperately to protect himself from how bad he knew the fallout could be.

Loki’s delighted grin at his words, therefore, completely passed his notice. “ _That_ , gorgeous, implies there are compliments being withheld.”

If Sam ever wanted to look back, to try and pinpoint the moment when everything irreversibly shifted, he would be hard put to say it wasn’t those words. A tease, trying to entice outrage or laughter. On the surface, nothing unusual for the Trickster. But as Sam’s head turned back, a snarky reply on his lips, the light in Loki’s eyes caught his heart and the world tilted on its axis.

A god alone, isolated for reasons Sam could only guess at. Those molten eyes bore hungers unsated for longer than Sam had been alive: not for kinky sex or a partner that wasn’t a chimera. Hunger for companionship that wasn’t enchanted in one way or another. For the touch of another living creature and everything that went with it: not just passion but affection, solace.

Loki was as alone as Sam had always felt.

“It’s not like I have exact comparisons here,” Sam found himself saying. “But you’ve got some skills you could hone. Some potential there, maybe.”

Something in Loki’s eyes flared at that. Sam couldn’t read it, wasn’t sure what about his reply had caused it. But Loki shifted up, hovered over him, staring down through him and Sam got lost in amber-gold eyes that seemed impossibly deep…

A snap of fingers. The bed seemed almost to swallow them, melting around them. Sam came up spluttering as he found himself submerged in a fragrant bath, the tub surrounding them larger than anything he’d ever had access to before. Out of pure instinct, Sam stretched out with a low groan of pleasure, his legs fully extended and his body sinking until he was slumping quite comfortably up to his neck in the blissfully warm water. “Decided we should leave the bed after all, huh?”

Mauve ribbon lips twitched in a cocky smirk. “Something like that.”

Before Sam could question it further, Loki was sliding across his hips, straddling his waist. Sam let out a low groan as the hard length of Loki’s erection brushed against his stomach, wondering at the stamina of gods and how anybody devoted to their pantheons had ever gotten anything done before the sweeping rise of Christianity had weakened their hold on this plane.

“You think entirely too much,” Loki murmured, husky voice rubbing over Sam’s senses and driving a soft moan of want from Sam’s lips. “Even when I’m buried in you, you’re still thinking, Sam… you need to let go of that once in a while. You might be surprised by the results.”

Long wet fingers laced through Loki’s hair from both sides as Sam shifted, turning his head towards Loki’s. Their mouths were a fraction of a breath apart, and Sam’s vision was filled with the bright honey-amber eyes that had haunted him since the moment they’d first met.

A long, dangerous moment passed. Part of Sam wanted to meet those lips, to surrender everything. To fall, and let the godling catch him.

The part of him that had anything resembling self-preservation won out. “See if you can do something about it, then.” Loki’s eyes narrowed. Sam waited, a vaguely superior twist to his lips, a smirk of his own schooled to tempt the Trickster.

He got more than he bargained for.

Loki’s hips undulated against his own, a slow, sinuous roll that slid the full length of his arousal against Sam’s only half-formed erection. The glide and swirl of water between and around them had Sam’s breath caged in his throat, his eyes falling closed and his head falling back of its own accord. In a heartbeat, Loki’s lips were on his neck, whispering over the long expanse of his throat, parting to let sharp white teeth graze the vulnerable flesh, pinch and nibble at the hollow of his pulse and tendons stretched taut.

Nimble fingers ran up his arms, along his torso, up into his hair. Sam’s breath broke into a moan as Loki’s grip there tightened, his entire body responding to the dominant gesture and his own arousal springing to full life.

And all the while, Loki kept up that effortless rolling grind of hip against hip, tumescent flesh slip-sliding together below the surface. Porn stars and exotic dancers would deal their souls in a heartbeat for his graceful, perfectly timed movements, the raw sensuality Loki could bring to bear; Sam was absolutely certain of it.

How long it went on, with Loki drawing out the long liquid glide of their bodies against one another and scattering tiny bites over every inch of Sam’s throat and shoulders, Sam couldn’t begin to guess. Wasn’t in a fit state to try. By the time Loki was prodding and nudging, urging Sam to turn around, Sam’s entire body felt like little more than a jumble of hypersensitive nerves, shock waves rippling through him like electrical currents everywhere Loki touched.

He started to climb out of the fog of need as Loki continued to position Sam how the godling wanted him: massive hands braced on the edges of the tub, fingers gripping the cool, steam-slick stone tiles; on his knees, legs braced just wider than the breadth of his shoulders; bent at the waist just enough to leave the long expanse of his body stretched out, nothing concealed, his head hanging loose at his neck almost low enough to touch the tiles his hands clung to for support. “Loki…”

“However I want you,” came the dark, seductive reminder. Water-slick fingers trailed the length of Sam’s spine; raw heat spiraled under Sam’s skin in their wake, driving a moan from Sam’s lips and making his hips buck back in search of something to fill the hollow his body was suddenly keenly aware of. “You promised, Sam.”

“Yes…” It came out very nearly a sob. “Loki… please.”

“Soon enough, gorgeous. Now be still for me.”

He tried. Sam really, honestly tried. But it was decidedly less than easy as the position Loki had put him in left him exposed, vulnerable to Loki’s every caress. The godling seemed to be everywhere at once, intent on devouring every inch of Sam’s body, finding every niche where the right touch or lick or stinging bite made Sam gasp and beg, need unbearably heavy between his legs and muscles aching for want of being stretched in fierce possession, rather than the dull burning ache in the aftermath that made Sam sure he wouldn’t walk properly for a week.

Later, he was going to call himself ten kinds of a fool and sternly admonish himself because this was supposed to be about freeing Dean’s soul from Loki’s captivity. It wasn’t supposed to be about what was likely the most mind-numbingly amazing sex Sam would ever have in his life.

Thoughts like that shattered like thinnest glass when Loki’s mouth, which had been rather languidly tracing a warm sucking path down Sam’s spine, kept going. Sam sensed the demigod’s head disappearing beneath the surface, mouth that needed no air uninterrupted in its pursuit. Electric shocks jolted up Sam’s spine and he jerked, moving no more than a millimeter before Loki’s hands caught his hips in an iron grip and his voice echoed in the vaults of Sam’s mind. _*You really thought I couldn’t make good on that little dare, Sam? Silly hunter.*_

“Loki…” Sam’s heart seemed to trip and stutter as erratically as his breath, his entire body coiled for a spring to escape. “Loki… no, I… you can’t…”

 _*Let go, Sam.*_ The tip of Loki’s tongue trailed up the centerline between Sam’s lower cheeks. The sound Sam let out was somewhere between distress and supplication, wanton to its core. _*Just let go.*_

Fingers like bands of iron parted him, exposed him to that sinful mouth. The first slow trace of that tongue over muscles that had been tried and stretched and taxed nearly beyond endurance felt like a thunderclap exploding at the base of Sam’s spine.

No more thoughts. No holding back. This was intimacy Sam had never shared with anyone, intimacy he’d never imagined. Cunnilingus on a female lover seemed borderline impersonal in comparison. Sam howled, babbled, hips shaking and twisting in Loki’s grip. Loki simply proceeded. Needing no breath beneath the water, that talented tongue teased and dipped, wriggled and curled, giving no quarter or pause until Sam was a quivering, writhing mess beneath his lips.

One of those hands slid around Sam’s hips, fingers lacing in a tight grip at the base of Sam’s throbbing need. The touch drove a keen from Sam’s throat even as it ebbed the urgent build towards release, and Sam’s breath heaved raggedly in his lungs as the pressure in his gut waned.

 _*Not just yet, Sam.*_ Loki’s voice was threaded with indisputable command; Sam’s entire body shuddered under the compulsion to obey.

“Please…” The word seemed to wrench free, leaving Sam breathless from the effort. “Please, Loki…”

 _*Soon.*_ Keeping his grip tighter than any cock ring, Loki slid his tongue as deep as he could manage and _hummed_.

When Sam managed to recover the capacity for rational thought, he would deny that the sound that escaped him was anything resembling a shriek. That his vision flashed white behind his eyelids as he shoved his hips back against that mouth in unrestrained invitation. That the words spilling from his lips were anything less than imploring.

Talented tongue was replaced with long fingers, opening Sam’s muscles with lingering scissor strokes as Loki kissed his way back up Sam’s spine. Sam whimpered and keened, arching against Loki’s fingers, driving them deeper, needing more…

And then Loki was pulling him away from his grip on the edge, turning him and pushing his legs apart and Sam was spreading for him so beautifully that Loki could have wept from the sight; nearly did as he pushed in and Sam cried out his name as he wrapped arms and legs around the demigod in total abandon.

This time it was Loki’s hands braced on the edge, Sam’s back balanced against it, each deep thrust and retreat of Loki’s hips in Sam’s body making the human rock across it like a fulcrum. It would bruise like Hell, not that Sam was noticing; he was too far gone in the way it enhanced the surge and ebb inside, the way he finally lost himself in Loki’s embrace, the god’s name falling from his lips in wanton litany.

Lips dipped, brushed the base of his collarbone. Sam’s hands threaded into sunset hair, needing an anchor, the tug just driving Loki that much deeper… harder… Sam didn’t know if he begged for it or if the Trickster gave it unasked but it didn’t matter because it was what Sam craved…

One hand found the will to pull free of the edge, their weight balanced on the other by an immortal’s strength alone; Sam clawed at Loki’s scalp as talented fingers worked between them, wrapping around him so Loki’s thumb could stroke the weeping slit at the tip…

“Come for me, Sam.” Not a command. Almost a plea. “Wanna feel you come with me inside you…”

The almost gentle entreaty was punctuated by a deep stroke tagging Sam’s prostate, and Loki got what he wanted. His name was a ragged shout on Sam’s lips as the hunter exploded in his arms, clinging and crying out as the tight grip of his body clenched and fluttered around the demigod, dragging the Trickster into his own release with a helpless moan of Sam’s name.

Long, silent moments passed as they came back to themselves. Sam’s grip slowly relaxed, but didn’t relinquish the Trickster even as Loki shifted to slip out; even tightened a little when he thought Loki might leave the circle of his arms before Sam was willing to let go.

When they finally both opened their eyes, Sam’s were vulnerable. Loki ran soft fingers through Sam’s hair, a question that had been plaguing him for hours finally finding voice. “You’ve never done this with a man before, have you? Top or bottom.” Sam shook his head, eyes casting away from Loki in something that might have been shame. “Sam, why? You had no idea what I’d do to you…”

When Sam looked back, the vulnerability was locked away, hidden behind a quiet, implacable resolve that shook Loki to his bones. It was far, far too reminiscent of another set of eyes, in a face not seen in millennia. “Dean is all I have, Loki. The only family I’ve got, the only person in the world I can really trust. If you’re not willing to give everything for family, what else is there?”

For long moments, Loki was still, cradling the young hunter, his thoughts a million miles and thousands of years away. Unaccountably, Sam wanted to soothe him, to erase the moment and whatever pain it was causing the godling. Slow, as if he weren’t sure how it would be received, Sam leaned up and brushed a gentle kiss over the tip of Loki’s sharp nose.

Loki’s answering shower of kisses stole Sam’s senses, beguiling him back towards arousal. He lost track of everything but the Trickster in his arms, didn’t know when Loki shifted them from the water to the carpet before the fireplace, the heat of the flames drying their skin as they rocked together. Didn’t care how long they lingered there before they were back in the silken bower of that huge canopied bed, because Loki was in him and he was riding Loki and Loki was whispering to him in a language he didn’t know, winding tendrils of silvery power around and through him until Sam couldn’t be sure if he were living or dead, awake or dreaming.

All he knew was that when Loki finally pressed a gentle kiss to his temple in the wake of orgasm that had rolled over and through him like a tidal wave, Sam slid into untroubled sleep surrounded by the scent of mint and lilies and a god’s unreserved passion.

* * *

He gazed down at the sleeping human, drinking in the quiet beauty of the man beside him. It had been far, far too long since he’d had real companionship, something Sam had obviously discerned and had led to the offer he’d made. But the boy couldn’t have foreseen the maelstrom of emotion he would unleash along with it.

Sam might not have been a total innocent, but he’d never been with a man before. And yet he’d never allowed a hint of that to show until it had been far too obvious, the deal in motion, no going back. Innocence: a gift beyond price to a recipient who didn’t deserve it, who hadn’t had any clue it was being offered until it had been taken with far too little grace.

He could never begin to make it up to Sam. Could never expect this precious mortal to begin to forgive him. This lovely, gentle soul, bound to a darkness he didn’t yet understand, who was so like a brother long-lost to time and shadow.

Something stirred in him at the thought, old and powerful. It had been a very, very long time since he’d thought about any of his brothers. They were a source of nothing but painful memories and even harsher realities, all of which were bound up in the twenty-five year old that was nestled so peacefully in the silk sheets.

His gaze returned to Sam’s body, drawn by the long, sleek lines and sculptured muscles. There was nothing about Sam that wasn’t exquisitely formed, tempting and touchable and everything he could want. And yet, this beautiful boy was destined for nothing but darkness and death, a chess piece between players he wouldn’t know anything about until it was too late.

_If only…_

Sam shifted, edging unconsciously towards the warmth of his body where it reclined mere inches away. One large hand reached out, finding his arm and resting there, as if drawing some kind of comfort from his presence. A ghost of contentment seemed to whisper across that beautiful face, though he doubted it had anything to do with the passionate hours they’d just shared.

_Blood and pain… unless someone is willing to stand up and stop it._

It was a stupid, reckless, ridiculous decision. He had no reason on any plane of existence to interfere more than he already had; had sworn to himself that he’d do nothing of the sort. Fucking around with Fate had a tendency to come back on you three times worse. It was potentially fatally idiotic to even consider such a thing.

Another stir from Sam. A murmur in a dream. Bright soul bound by chains not of his making, unable to understand why it couldn’t unlock them. Why it couldn’t just be free.

Sam woke to the feel of lips covering his own, startling him just a little. They were warm and soft, tasting faintly of mint and meadowsweet and strawberries, and he rolled onto his side, reaching up to sink a hand into the soft hair framing the elfin face that mouth belonged to. They hadn’t kissed on the mouth; not once since the deal was struck. Those lips had been put to far more astonishing uses, and Sam hadn’t really minded.

This was gentler than Sam understood, tasting him, somehow mingling something akin to an apology with the faint twinge of a promise, and an undertone of affection that didn’t make any sense. Sam blinked when those lips drew back, seeing a flicker in golden eyes that he couldn’t recognize at all. “Loki?”

A smile, kinder than the smirks that usually graced those perfect lips. “When you wake up, you’ll have your brother back, as promised. Everything the way it was, and Dean won’t remember where he’s been… won’t remember dying.”

Something was off… Sam propped himself up, feeling the strangest urge to give comfort to the godling. “What is it, Loki? What else is going on?”

Breath he didn’t need. A pause that seemed louder than the heartbeat in his ears. “Get your brother and get out of Broward County. Use whatever resources you have; anything your friends have; and find two things as soon as you can.”

“What?” Confusion was hemming in, and Sam had to fight down the urge to press closer to the other man’s warmth, to seek safety in those arms. This had been a business arrangement, no matter how amazing it had been, and he needed to remember that. This had been his idea, after all. It wasn’t like the Trickster was going to be having any weird emotional fallout from it.

“The charm to reveal a true name, and a trap that will hold a Trickster.” The words came out not quite rushed, as if they were being pushed out all at once before better judgment could stop them. “Call to me, and I will come.”

More than ever, Sam knew something wasn’t right. Something like a storm gathering on the horizon, the air full of static in anticipation. “Why are you telling me this?”

Almost regretfully, he reached up and ran his fingers through the walnut silk of Sam’s hair. He could genuinely come to love the way this young mortal felt under his fingertips… or could have, if things had fallen out differently. If he hadn’t been such a damned fool to spoil his chance before he’d known he wanted one… “There’s so much you don’t know, Sam… things you need to know, if you and Dean are going to get through this. But there’s nothing I’ll say that your brother will believe, even if you know I’m telling the truth. Tell him anything you want. Make him believe I didn’t suggest a thing about this. Just find them, and then summon me. I’ll tell you everything I can.”

“Loki…” Sam frowned, hesitating. “Tell me. Just tell me now; I’ll make Dean believe it.”

“No, Sam.” He shook his head. “Dean won’t believe it unless he knows there’s no way I could be lying, and he deserves to know why his deal was allowed to happen… why all of this has happened. And so do you.”

A shiver swept through Sam’s skin, shadows elongating in the darkened room. Foreboding built in his gut, like a vision that wouldn’t let go. Without thinking he was reaching for the smaller man’s body, drawing it close and down and kissing him as if to drown in the godling’s scent and taste and warmth, to close out everything but the soft bower surrounding them and the feel of his lover’s touch on his skin.

There was no artistry between them this time. Only hunger, desperation to go back, to turn away from the immensity of something that Sam didn’t understand, from a reality even an immortal couldn’t bear to accept. Sam’s legs fell apart and he arched into the heavy press of that erection against his still-stretched entrance, needing to be lost… to just be safe here, in the very last place on Earth he should feel safe…

But he did. They both did, clinging to each other and crashing together and moaning formless litanies of need and want and more, until Sam’s release spilled out of him with a long, keening cry, his muscles rippling tightly around the full heat inside him and drawing out his lover’s climax with a gutteral groan of his name.

Sleep drew Sam, a siren song that he tried to resist. He wanted to know more… wanted to understand why the demi-god looked so… sad…

Another gentle kiss to his temple. A frisson of that strange power whispering in the wake of those lips. Sam tumbled back into dreamless slumber, imprinting one last memory of warm weight and sun-kissed strawberries as reality slid away.

* * *

_“But you better promise me I'll be back in ti-i-ime…”_

The music penetrated Sam’s dream, an almost garish sound in comparison to the comforting quiet of sleep. Sam’s eyes snapped open before his mind could catch up, darting back and forth to take in as much of his environment as he could.

Loki’s haven, wherever it had been, was gone. Huge pink flamingos against a flat yellow and blue background caught at the edges of his vision; heavy curtains hanging from a window to his left were vaguely dun in color and parted to let light in through the shears. The sheets beneath his hands were cotton worn scratchy from years of use, the pillow flat under his head, the bed much narrower and decidedly empty. He was no longer naked, as he had been when he’d fallen asleep in Loki’s arms; was instead wearing a comfortable gray v-necked tee, light athletic pants and boxers.

The pajamas he’d been wearing during his and Dean’s stay in Broward County.

Sitting up slowly, Sam’s eyes immediately settled on the bathroom door. It was open, giving a clear view of the floral-print wallpaper within, the fluorescent light gleaming off silver fixtures. Dean was standing there: fully dressed, brushing his teeth.

Just like he had been six months earlier, when the Trickster had released them from a seemingly-endless cycle of Tuesdays. Just like he had been a few paltry hours before being shot and killed by Kel in the parking lot.

Dean caught him staring when he turned. His brother’s viridian eyes were calm, complacent, as if this morning was no different than a thousand others they’d shared in their lives. “What? You gonna sleep all day?”

Huey Lewis’ voice kept blaring on the radio. Sam couldn’t answer, couldn’t seem to speak at all. A thousand emotions crowded him, words lodging in his throat and refusing to move, as if speaking would break the fragile world around him.

If this was a dream, or an illusion, Sam wasn’t entirely certain which version of reality he wanted to wake up to.

Seemingly unconcerned by Sam’s inability to articulate, Dean stepped across the threshold of the bathroom, toothbrush still gripped in his right hand. He held a toothbrush like a knife or a stake: a habit formed from a lifetime of wielding weapons against creatures of shadow. “I know,” he commented, continuing as if Sam had responded to his question. “No Asia. This station sucks.”

An ache set up in Sam’s chest, springing from a source he didn’t want to identify. Hating to take his eyes off Dean for more than a blink, Sam made himself turn back and look at the name of the day displayed on the ancient clock radio.

‘WED’, in block letters split in half by the seam in the tiny flip cards, stared back at him.

Loki had honored their bargain. Sam had no idea if he’d actually spent twenty-four hours in the Trickster’s bed or not, but in the end, the demigod had fulfilled his half of the deal.

It was Wednesday, and Dean was alive.

“It’s Wednesday,” Sam found himself saying as he lifted his gaze back to the brother he’d nearly lost, hearing the soft wonder in his voice as if someone else had spoken. He half-expected the last two and a half years to be fading in his memory, like a nightmare vivid in the pre-dawn REM cycle but unable to withstand the light of day. And yet, the time loop he’d been trapped in and the months spent alone consumed by the hunt for the Trickster were as clear and real in his mind as any other event in his life since he’d been four years old.

And the day he’d spent with Loki was still so fresh that he would swear he could still smell the Trickster’s musky desire on his skin.

“Yeah: which usually follows Tuesday.” Dean, for his part, seemed completely oblivious to the tears that were burning in his little brother’s eyes, the catch in his voice that Sam couldn’t have named the source of if he’d tried. “Turn that thing off,” he instructed peremptorily, gesturing at the radio still playing in the background as he turned back to the sink.

Something wild unfurled in Sam’s chest, and he threw the blankets off, sliding from the bed and crossing the distance to the bathroom in four short strides. Before Dean knew what was happening, Sam had yanked him into a hug so possessive that Dean almost melted, only barely remembering that such open displays of affection between them weren’t a normal state of affairs anymore.

But then, Sam had been trapped in a time loop, or at least that’s what Sam had said yesterday. And the Trickster had seemed to confirm it when Sam had confronted the creature outside the diner. Thinking about it, Dean could admit that such a colossal mind-fuck would have him acting outside the norm, too, if he’d been in Sammy’s place.

Still, it wasn’t a good idea to do what his instincts wanted and wrap Sam into a hug right back, to hold on and never let go. Only a few months left until Hell came knocking, and Sam needed to get back on the horse, not wallow in the aftermath of the Trickster’s psychotic illusion. “Dude, how many Tuesdays did you have?” he asked, keeping a firm grip on himself and not returning the embrace Sam had him in.

It felt, for a long moment, like Sam would never let go again. There was a part of Dean that was all too willing to let that happen.

“Enough.” Enough and more, and the smell of Dean’s stolen Nautica aftershave was still fresh on his brother’s skin, crowding the memory of mint and lilies. Sam didn’t want to let go, needed Dean to anchor himself in the now, to keep himself from breaking down as his emotions tried to catch up with reality. Loki had honored their agreement; Dean was alive and whole and safe in his arms, and they would leave this place together.

 _Loki._ He needed to remember not to call the Trickster that when he and Dean spoke of it again. Dean would want to know how Sam would have discovered the name, and Sam wouldn’t know how to explain that he’d bargained sex for Dean’s life… not without Dean completely losing his cool.

And then the second part of his demands prodded Sam’s awareness and Sam reluctantly released Dean from the hug, though he kept a firm grip on his brother’s broad shoulders. He wasn’t ready to let go of his brother’s warm, living body just yet. “Wait… what do you remember?”

Something in those hazel eyes… the urgency and the roiling emotions… the husky catch in Sam’s voice that sounded like any minute he would break into hysterical sobs… Dean felt a knot of fear start to tighten in his chest; whatever Sam had been through at the Trickster’s orchestration, it had affected his little brother right down to the core.

Where jackass-big-brother Dean might have replied with something smart-assed or dismissive, the part of him that loved his brother beyond the point of reason took over and offered the truth instead. “I remember you were pretty whacked out yesterday,” he admitted, letting his own concern for his Sammy bleed into his tone. “Remember catching up with the Trickster. That’s about it.”

All of it. Loki had obeyed his promise to the letter: restored Dean’s life and their timeline and removed any memories Dean might have had of being dead. Sam had to swallow more than once to clear the lump in his throat, trying to regain his composure.

The Trickster had done everything he’d promised. Which meant that his last promise to Sam would be upheld, too, so long as Sam could do as instructed.

_“There’s so much you don’t know, Sam… things you need to know, if you and Dean are going to get through this…”_

“Let’s go,” Sam said finally, letting one hand drop but still keeping the other on his brother’s bicep. He was working up to relinquishing his physical connection to Dean, to letting himself believe that if he turned his back or closed his eyes, Dean would still be there.

Dean blinked in surprise. “No breakfast?”

A mirthless chuckle left Sam, his eyes still burning with tears he didn’t know whether or not his brother could see. Part of him didn’t care. “No breakfast,” Sam confirmed.

With a shrug, Dean acquiesced. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d gotten drive-thru on the road first thing in the morning. “All right: I’ll pack the car,” he agreed, half-turning from Sam towards the sink.

Memory of the last time Dean had said that tore through Sam’s mind and Sam’s grip on Dean tightened. “Wait… you’re not going anywhere alone.”

“It’s the parking lot, Sam!” Dean was willing to give Sam a little leeway here, on account of a monster messing with his head for who knew how long. But there was only so much mother-henning Dean was going to take.

“Just…” Sam’s throat closed. He couldn’t tell Dean about that Wednesday. Couldn’t let Dean know that there’d been more to the trick than Dean remembered. What it had led to, what had been needed to restore Dean’s life… Sam couldn’t allow Dean to ever know. It was his burden to bear alone. “Just trust me.”

Dean couldn’t fathom why Sam was so close to tears. His little brother was emo, yes, but this was doing it up a bit much. _What the Hell did the Trickster do to him that I don’t know about?_ “Sammy, it’ll be okay, man. The trick’s over, right?”

“I don’t want to take any chances,” Sam urged softly. “I mean, we thought we killed him a year ago, Dean. He’s capable of anything. Let’s just stay together until we get outta town, okay?”

There was little Dean could think of that would change Sam’s mind; his brother had that look on his face. “Okay,” Dean sighed. “We’ll pack up here and then pack the car together. But if you even think about trying to call anything but shotgun, you’ll have Nair in your shampoo for a month; you got it?”

It was that threat, more than anything, that got Sam to relax enough to finally release Dean’s arm. Dean really was back. Everything was going to be all right. And if Loki kept his last promise as completely as he’d kept this one, there was a chance that Sam could actually save Dean from his contract before Dean’s year was up. “Got it.”


	3. The Mask I Have Outworn – Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see Chapter One for warnings, disclaimers and notes.

~ooooOOOoooo~

 

It wasn’t until they were well out of town before Sam could bring himself to broach the subject of finding what Loki had instructed him to find. “Dean… we need to go to Bobby’s.”

“What for?” Dean’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel, though he otherwise appeared to be relaxed. Sam’s tension was bleeding through to him, and something nagged at his senses... a shadow on his peripheral vision that never came into view.

“Something the Trickster said...” Sam tried to breathe, to not give away too much. Dean could never know how far things with Loki had gone. “Dean, I think he knows more than he’s saying about your deal, and I think he can help us get you out of it.”

“How do you figure?” Dean asked, eyeing Sam quickly. His baby brother was pale and shaken to the core by the trick, and Dean wasn’t sure he could handle another confrontation with the demigod quite so soon.

“You never went to Hell.”

There was a shriek of tires in the wake of that quiet assertion, and then the Impala was pulled along the side of the highway and Dean was staring at Sam with an intensity that had the younger Winchester near to squirming. “All right: out with it Sammy. What happened?”

There was no way he could tell Dean about the deal he’d struck. No way Dean would understand the choice Sam had made or the results that still felt embedded in his skin. But Loki had said to convince Dean however necessary, and Sam was ready to take any gamble he had to in pursuit of the truth Loki had offered him unasked. “He killed you, Dean. Not just death blow and fade to black and I wake up to Asia. Every day, over seven hundred of them, you died before sunset and I had to finish the day alone, stashing your corpse and keeping a lid on things and finally falling asleep, only to wake up in the same place all over again. Sometimes it’d be practically first thing and we’d never even make it to breakfast before I was alone in a motel room with your corpse.”

Dean flinched slightly at the word. Sam kept going. “And he brought you back every time. I doubt whoever’s holding your contract would let you get yanked out of their grip that many times and not come to break up the Trickster’s game. Which means that every time he killed you, he had the power to keep the demon holding your contract from finding out _and_ to control what happened to your soul until the next morning.”

It didn’t take Dean long to catch up. “Which means he knows enough about the whole damn thing to override it.” A hand raked through his hair. “Fuck... you’re right. We want to get an edge on this thing, we gotta hit Bobby’s and find a way to make this bastard spill.” Turning to pull back onto the road, Dean spared another glance at Sam. “You sure there’s nothing you wanna tell me, Sam?”

Sam shifted in his seat. A flare from muscles still tender shot up his spine and pooled in his gut, and genuinely delighted sensual laughter echoed in his mind. “Nothing,” he asserted, settling back to watch the scenery passing by. The flare had died into a low residual burn and dots of sunlight reflected on the windows blurred as Sam’s eyes watered at the corners. He had no idea how he would keep Dean from seeing his reaction when he saw Loki again. He hadn’t expected to fall so fast.

He knew what had passed between them had merely been a pleasant interlude for the godling, one that he might remember in centuries to come when Sam was dust and shadow. But Sam couldn’t shake away the attachment he kept feeling, and it felt suspiciously like…

Refusing to finish the thought, Sam shifted again and settled in for the long drive to South Dakota.

* * *

“You two idjits wanna run this past me one more time?” Bobby settled in behind his desk with a steaming mug of coffee, his eyes perplexed above his russet beard.

“The Trickster didn’t die when I planted a couple feet of evergreen in his chest,” Dean replied. “He’s also apparently seen **_Groundhog Day_** and decided it’d be a fun way to work out his anger issues over the fact that I did. Sammy used his big-assed brain to figure out that the only way the jackass could’ve pulled it off is if he knows how the soul deals work and how to beat ‘em, so we gotta find a way to trap the bastard someplace and wring what he knows out of ‘im.”

“There’s gotta be lore on it somewhere, Bobby,” Sam chimed in. “Anansi, Loki, Puck, Coyote... we can’t be the first hunters or magic users that ever tried it. If there’s anything that’d work... even just for a little while to hold him... it’s worth a try.”

For a long moment, Bobby gazed from one to the other, his expression unreadable and his eyes intent. Sam and Dean just waited, not sure exactly how fast they needed to talk to get him on board.

“Eh, what the Hell,” Bobby finally gruffled, setting his coffee down and standing to peruse his library shelves. “Least if I’m involved, I might be able to keep you idjits from doin’ something fatally stupid.”

* * *

“Think I found something,” Dean said, hours later, motioning Bobby closer to peer at the book he’d been reading. “This thing’s spirit energy, right? Everything we hunt is, one way or another.”

“Pretty much,” Bobby agreed. “Human souls, demons, gods, angels… they’re all just energy in one form or another.”

Dean quirked an eyebrow at him. “Angels, Bobby? Really?”

“You believe what you want, boy,” the older hunter admonished. “I’ve seen enough to believe anything’s possible and there’s too much evil crap out there to not believe that there’s good things to balance it.”

Viridian eyes were still skeptical, too cynical for someone so young, but Dean made no further challenge. There were no angels to swoop in and save him from Hell; no Heavenly warriors filled with righteous fury that would smite the demons salivating over his incipient fall. “We know that iron works to dispel ghosts, keep out demons… lore says anything considered fey can be bound by cold iron, too. Even some of the legends about man being given fire say the old gods didn’t want man forging metal weapons.”

“You think you can trap this thing with iron?” Bobby’s mouth disappeared in his facial hair as he considered it. “It’ll be tricky, getting him into an iron circle.”

“We get him into an alcove that’s lined on the edges with iron filings,” Dean explained, a plan forming as he spoke. “Soon as we get him across the threshold, we close the circle. He’s trapped until we let him out.”

“Bind it with salt, too,” Bobby agreed. “Big crystals in the corners to anchor it. Probably won’t hold him long, but it’ll sure’s Hell slow him down.”

“Long enough for this to work,” Sam added.

Dean and Bobby looked up to where the younger Winchester sat with his computer. Dean noted with concern that Sam looked a little haggard around the eyes. “What’d you find, Sam?” Dean rose and walked to his brother’s chair, stooping to look at the computer screen over Sam’s shoulder.

“It’s an elemental charm, kinda like scrying, but a lot more powerful,” Sam replied. “If we do it right, the sigil of his true name will appear.”

“What’s that get us?”

“Power to bind him into the trap,” Sam replied, ignoring the icy stab in his chest as he said it. “Maybe even to banish him from the physical plane.”

“Like an exorcism?” Dean’s eyes lit up. “Awesome.”

“If you can use it,” Bobby interjected. “There might be some lore on banishing fey creatures, but demi-gods are another story.”

“Reverse a summoning ritual?” Dean suggested.

Bobby grunted. “Could work. Have to find a one-size-fits-all, though.”

Dean came around the desk, clapping Sam on the shoulder in an ‘atta-boy’ gesture. Sam turned back to the computer and prayed that, no matter what happened, Dean wouldn’t hurt Loki too badly.

He also prayed that this stupid, heart-sick churning in his gut would someday go away.

* * *

An abandoned farmhouse not far from Bobby’s suited their needs perfectly. The storm cellar had a large alcove for cool storage, walls studded with old iron nails that had once held up wooden shelves. Sam watched Dean lining the edges with iron filings as he prepared the ritual elements behind an old rusted-out freezer, out of sight and unlikely to be in a fight path.

“You sure about this, Sammy?” Dean called as he finished. “I mean, the bastard coulda just been baiting you.”

“I’m sure, Dean.” Sam didn’t meet his brother’s eyes until he found the pouch with the salt crystals. “Here… the anchors.”

“Right.” Dean let his gaze linger on his brother for a moment. Something had been wrong with Sam since Wednesday morning… since that tight hug that had felt wonderfully possessive but completely out of left field. Sam had always been emo, was into the touchy-feely stuff that chicks said made guys ‘sensitive’, but they didn’t hug… not since before Sam left for Stanford. They didn’t touch more than necessary; hadn’t for years.

When they’d been children together, living largely on their own when their father was hunting, physical affection had been common. Dean wasn’t sure whether or not he missed it. Most of the time, he didn’t think about it; they’d outgrown childish things long ago and there was a rift between them that had opened when Sam went to Stanford and had only widened over time.

But Hell was coming to claim him. The year his contract had given him was up in just over a month. There were moments, fleeting but increasingly frequent as time passed, when Dean was weak enough to want what he’d given up. To want what he would never allow himself to ask of his brother, because it would only hurt Sam later to have given it.

“All right.” The words came out louder than necessary, directed almost more at himself than at Sam. “Ready as we’re gonna get, Sammy. You all set with the summoning thing?”

Sam nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He wasn’t sure precisely how much of this would be the ritual and how much would be Loki just responding to his call. But Dean didn’t need to know that. Turning away from his brother, he lit the herbs in the bowl and started chanting. The incantation was in Latin, but he didn’t really think that mattered much. The intent was what counted. Closing his eyes, hoping Dean wouldn’t notice how nervous he suddenly was, Sam tried to focus his thought on the godling whose touch had left sensation echoes over most of his body. _*Loki… Loki, it’s time…*_

“Isn’t this a quaint little set-up?”

Unwontedly, Sam froze when those mocking tones rang through the cellar. That voice reached deep, reflecting undercurrents of sensuality… of honest delight…

One day. How could just one day have affected him so much?

“You boys really should sue your real estate agent,” Loki continued, swiping two fingers down a grimy wall. “Fixer-uppers are one thing, but the only thing that’ll help this place is a demolition crew.”

“Yeah, we’ll remember that,” Dean snarked, crossbow held almost negligently. “Couldn’t resist, could you?”

“You kidding?” Loki’s amber eyes danced, flickering over Sam briefly. Sam almost thought he saw something… was it regret? “You two are far too much fun.”

“Gonna be a lot of fun when I put you in the ground,” Dean growled, low and menacing.

Loki’s eyes flickered, a dangerous glint flaring in their gilded depths. “You can try, boy. You can always _try_.” Dean launched an arrow. Loki deflected it easily, brushing it aside before it could reach him. “Seriously, Dean… you can do better than that.”

From nowhere, snakes appeared, littering the floor with writhing, hissing bodies that threatened to jump at whatever moved. Sam and Dean scrambled, Dean hacking at the serpents that sprang with his silver machete while Sam got to cover behind the freezer. “Sam?!”

“Got it!” Still crouched, Sam took aim over the rim of the freezer with his own crossbow and fired. The wind shear from the bolt barely grazed Loki’s arm, but it was enough to distract the godling. The snakes flickered as Loki blinked from one space to the next. Dean launched himself at the Trickster from the table he’d climbed, flinging himself at the demigod in a reckless tackle. Loki blinked out again; Dean crashed into the wall. Sam half-jerked to his feet, firing instinctively.

The evergreen arrow drove through Loki’s left shoulder with a sickening wet tear. Sam went numb. Golden eyes hit his, shock ripping between them. Understanding, forgiveness, even…

 _*The alcove!*_ Sam didn’t know how the godling would hear him. Wasn’t sure he would. _*Get into the alcove!*_

Dean was on his feet, machete swinging, a flash in the dark. The blade cleaved through empty air. Loki was in the alcove, the bolt clattering to the floor, shoulder healed and torn cloth mended with a thought. With a lightening-fast jerk, Dean pulled the cord they’d rigged over the top of the door frame.

A shower of iron spilled from the canopy, sealing the threshold and completing the trap. Shielding his eyes from the spray, Dean slid the last salt node into place.

The snakes vanished. Loki met Dean’s smug gaze with one of his own, something irrepressibly knowing in those amber eyes. Sam had to struggle to breathe normally. “Cute,” Loki observed. He traced the outside edge of one of the sigils painted inside the alcove. “You really think this’ll hold _me_?”

“Don’t see you strolling out,” Dean replied. Sam knew the tone in his brother’s voice: a little breathless, jubilant that they had the upper hand.

“I could, if I wanted,” Loki returned airily. “But I’m curious as to why you boys’d go to all this trouble. Certainly not to try and kill me.”

“Your little stunt in Florida.” Dean sheathed his machete, finding his crossbow amongst the half-ruin in the cellar. “Seems to me you’d need to know pretty much everything about crossroads deals to pull that off even once without me slipping down into Hell soon as I kicked. And especially to keep repeating it.”

“I know pretty much everything about a lot of things.” Loki wasn’t looking at Sam or Dean, exploring the alcove walls with almost idly curious fingers.

“But you do know about my deal,” Dean insisted.

“ _Everybody_ knows about your deal,” Loki snapped. All traces of idleness or amusement were gone, eyes glowing molten in the dim light. “Your lip-lock with that crossroads whore woke every sensitive for a thousand miles screaming. Every creature connected to anything felt the shockwave.”

“Why?” Sam asked, still standing behind the freezer. He was to stay with the ritual elements, ready to retrieve Loki’s name sigil. It still didn’t make sense why Loki wanted them to do this… what Loki intended to achieve with this contrived performance. “What makes Dean’s deal so different from anyone else’s?”

“Being a hunter’s not enough of a distinction?”

Loki was playing again, deflecting and refusing them straight answers. Sam suddenly had a horrible feeling that this had all been very carefully orchestrated. Right from the start, supernatural beings had been playing games with their lives. But what was Loki after? What more could any of these things possibly ask of them?

“You’re gonna tell us everything you know about crossroads deals,” Dean ordered ominously. “Especially mine.”

“And if I’m disinclined to acquiesce to your request?” Loki challenged.

Dean smiled viciously. “We blast your ass back to whatever plane you came from and seal you there.”

Sam’s heart seemed permanently lodged in his throat. He wanted to cry out; to end the charade and remind Loki that he’d promised to tell them the truth behind the machinations that surrounded them… had promised with kisses that Sam could still feel on his skin.

But he couldn’t. Dean couldn’t know or he would never trust this. And Loki knew that. He had a plan that would ensure Dean believed what he had to say, and Sam trusted him. Insane as it sounded, Sam actually trusted the Trickster...

“Take your best shot, boys.” Folding his arms, Loki leaned against the wall beside him to watch the ritual unfold.

“Your call.” Dean shrugged, secretly feeling something in his chest deflate. Another chance to get a step ahead of this mess gone. But there was no way that he’d beg for information. Wouldn’t trade his dignity for his life. Dean turned to Sam, eyes closed off and flat with resignation. “Do it.”

One last look at the deceptively imperturbable Loki, and then Sam was kneeling, igniting the candle. Earth, air, fire, water, akasha: all represented. All invoked to reveal that which was hidden, the true name of a creature that existed to deceive. The sigil would manifest through the element to which the creature was most closely related, or so the sources had said. Dean had a cell phone camera trained on the elements, ready to send the photo to Bobby for identification if neither of them recognized it.

Something at the bottom of the water bowl began to glow, shimmering within the depths. Sam’s eyes went wide as he gestured at Dean, never breaking chant. Dean focused on the water, hoping he wouldn’t have to try and photograph the thing at the bottom of the swirling liquid…

As it turned out, he didn’t.

The glow brightened, intensified, until it was nearly as sharp as the glow of a full moon on a clear night. It rose from the depths like a star, sending both Dean and Sam back a step as it suddenly shot free of the surface and emblazoned itself across the ceiling.

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/ladyeternal/pic/0000fr5c/)

Dean snapped a photo, e-mailing it to Bobby. “You recognize it, Sammy?”

“No.” Sam’s heart finally dropped out of his throat, falling like lead into the pit of his stomach. He was starting to wonder if it would ever again settle in the place it belonged. “It’s not Celtic or Futhark… might be Etruscan…”

Bobby’s ring on the cell. Dean opened the phone. “Bobby? Did you get it?”

_“Clear as anything… it’s old… dammit, boy; what the Hell’ve you got trapped?”_

“Sam thinks it might be Etruscan,” Dean offered, keeping an eye on the alcove. Even with the dramatic revelation of the sigil, the Trickster hadn’t moved an inch.

 _“I’m runnin’ it through that image search program now. Just a…”_ Bobby’s voice died away, only to return a moment later with a soft: _“Holy mother of… it can’t be…”_

“Bobby?” Dean threw the phone on speaker; they could hear books thumping in the background, old vellum pages flipped with no concern for their age. Bobby’s breath was little more than short frantic bursts and his words were indistinct as he muttered to himself. “Bobby, what the-”

 _“You boys need to get out of there!”_ Voice closer now; Bobby had snatched up the receiver, deactivating the speaker on his end. _“Right now!”_

“Bobby, what’d you find?” Dean demanded. He kept glancing over his shoulder, gauging the unmoving Trickster in the alcove.

_“Just get outta there, idjit! Now!”_

“Why?” Dean demanded again.

_“ ‘Cause that trap won’t hold him!”_

A crackle of thunder. Dean and Sam turned from the still burning sigil in time to see pure light behind the godling in the alcove... lightening and folded time, eldritch fire and trumpet-sound unfurling in great arches that looked like... like...

Expression solemn as carven stone, the creature stepped across the boundary of the trap with no difficulty whatsoever. He stood for a moment, raw power unbound in a space barely able to contain the weight of ordinary mortals, gazing at the stunned faces of the Winchester brothers.

“I told you I could walk out of there any time I wanted,” he replied. His voice echoed Time itself, glory and fury and eternity throbbing in every syllable.

Bobby was calling out for them to answer, his entreaties lost as both brothers’ minds tried to process the being before them. Dean was speechless. Sam barely found voice enough to choke: “What... who are you?”

Sadness. Compassion. Regret. Golden eyes that held far too much for even an immortal to quantify. “Gabriel.” His voice was soft as the summer breeze. “My name... is Gabriel.”


	4. The Mask I Have Outworn – Part Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see Chapter One for warnings, disclaimers and notes.

~ooooOOOoooo~

 

Silence. Gabriel stood his ground, heart bleeding in his chest. He couldn’t look at Sam directly, couldn’t bear the betrayal he knew was scything from those gorgeous hazel eyes. He’d made a choice, accepting Sam’s offer, and the consequences he’d failed to foresee were his fault.

Seeing what he knew Sam had to be feeling too much to bear.

“We need to go,” he forced himself to say, focusing on the Winchester whose erogenous zones he didn’t know. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover and we can’t stay here.”

“Just a…” Dean blinked hard once, twice, as if forcing himself to wake from a vivid dream. “Bobby?”

 _“He ain’t lyin’,”_ came Bobby’s voice, slow and awed through the tinny speaker. _“You idjits conjured a damn archangel’s sigil.”_

“But it could be a trick,” Dean hedged. “Right? I mean, bastard killed me a couple hundred times, Bobby. You saw the stuff he could create in Ohio…”

“Not this.” Sam’s voice was almost raspy. “The whole point is to reveal a true name. If it could be tricked, it’d be useless. It’d be known.”

“You can doubt all you want, Dean,” Gabriel added. “But I do know what you need to know, and Sam’s right: this little Rumpelstiltskin spell can’t be fooled.” The wings folded back in, plunging the room into darkness. “It’s bound in deeper magicks than even gods can tamper with.”

Dean snorted. “Yeah, right.”

Gabriel’s face darkened. “Look: we can argue about it all night, but _not here._ Everything under Heaven felt the power surge I just let loose, and you two are bright as lighthouses. The Mother of all Demons owns your contract, Dean, and she’ll be here any minute, hellhounds at her command and ready to rip you apart.”

“The year’s not up!” Sam protested.

 _“She won’t care!”_ Gabriel shot back. “All that’s gonna matter to her is I’m either help for you or competition for her, and I _cannot_ get into a bitchfight with her here! You want answers? You want to live? You come with me, _now_.”

Something bayed in the distance. Against his will, Dean went white as fear lanced to his bones. Sam threw everything they needed into a bag. “The car.”

“Got it.” Gabriel snapped his fingers.

Reality bent. Sam felt Dean nearby, but only vaguely. There was a sense of flight, of being carried by impossibly large hands and wings the size of thunderheads. Stretching and compressing and shifting and solid and air and everything and nothing…

And then they were in another building entirely. They were on their feet, standing in the great room of an unfamiliar house. Gabriel was checking the windows, golden eyes ranging further than either hunter could see. “They can’t get in,” he advised quickly. “But they’re waiting.”

“You’re saying we’re trapped here?” Dean asked, voice trembling on the words despite effort to keep it even.

“I’m saying we’re _safe_ ,” Gabriel replied shortly. “Here and a couple dozen other places I’ve built over the years, if we can make it to them. When you’re concealing yourself from Heaven _and_ Hell, you need safe havens.”

“Any cave in a crisis?” Dean snarked.

One tawny eyebrow quirked, a sarcastic smile twitching the Trickster… archangel’s lips. “You should see my private island: panoramic view, bluest water in the world, and every delicacy you could want whenever you want it.”

“So why ain’t we there?”

“Too far of a jump.” Gabriel seemed to be listening to something other than Dean for a moment. Neither Winchester could hear a sound. “One lucky shot from a hellhound while we’re in the air and you’re both dragged down.”

The room was quiet as the brothers absorbed that, Sam trying to tamp down his reeling emotions and Dean struggling with skepticism wholly born of a lifetime without faith. “Gabriel.” Dean said the name almost like a child sounding out a new word. It felt foreign, just like the idea that angels even existed. “An angel.”

“Archangel,” Gabriel corrected absently. “There is a difference.”

“Swell.” Dean straightened. “Prove it.”

Sam looked at Dean like he’d lost his mind. Gabriel didn’t look all that surprised. “What proof will you accept, Dean? You’ve got a spell that can’t be tricked, wings in as close to their real form as you can get without blinding you, and me with no reason to claim it if it wasn’t true. If none of that, what will make you believe?”

The point was fair; all things being equal, Dean really didn’t have an argument. But Dean didn’t want to believe. Wanted it to be more elaborate lies. Because the alternative…

The alternative was that something supernatural, something _good_ , gave a crap whether he lived or died. And the idea shook him his very foundations.

“Better buckle up, Deano,” Gabriel advised, dropping into a chair. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, and none of it’s all that easy to swallow.”

Slowly, Dean sat. Sam followed suit. “Okay: suppose I do believe you. You’re an archangel. Why are you down here when none of the other angels are? And why as a Trickster?”

Something in Gabriel shifted then. Sam ruthlessly quashed the urge to go to him, to offer him a word or gesture of comfort. He wasn’t supposed to feel this way, and everything between them had been a lie. Every touch. Every warm whispered word. He’d seduced an archangel, unknowing or not, in exchange for the soul of a brother slated for Hell because he’d made a deal with a demon…

Self-deprecation was interrupted by a snap. A bottle of scotch appeared on the table, three glasses beside it. Sitting forward, Gabriel poured two thick fingers’ worth into each glass. “This ain’t a story to tell or hear on a dry throat.”

Taking a glass of his own, Dean gave a half smile of gratitude. “Best ones never are.”

Sam was still a flare of jagged pain against his senses; Gabriel saw him take his glass, but couldn’t look directly at the younger hunter. “Beginning at The Beginning would take too damn long. I’m assuming you’re both familiar with the basic Heavenly family tree? Read Milton and Alighieri once upon a time?” Dean looked a little blank even as Sam nodded. Gabriel sighed. “O-kay… cliff notes version then…”

* * *

“So let me get this right.” Dean stood, pacing, scotch swirling in the tumbler in his hand. It was his fifth since Gabriel had started filling them in, which had been at least four hours ago. The archangel had been right: there’d been a lot of ground to cover. “Sam getting force-fed demon blood…”

“Fallen angel blood,” Gabriel corrected. “Very different in terms of power and potential.”

“ _Fallen angel_ blood,” Dean acknowledged, his tone contemptuous. “My deal, our parents’ deaths, Jessica’s… everything we’ve been put through our whole lives is all part of some moly cosmic plan to set us up as meatsuits for the first two archangels God ever made, so they can have a big-assed sword fight, during which the world and everybody in it burns no matter who goes down?”

“That’s about the size of it, yeah.” Gabriel poured himself another fifth of scotch; he’d gone through a bottle all on his own. Sam was nursing his third. “Everything you’ve done, every argument you had, every daddy issue you’ve got comes down to you to being built, from the ground up, to be The Perfect Vessels for my big brothers.”

“Yeah? Well, they can suck me,” Dean snapped. “ ‘Cause ain’t no way I’m saying yes to either one of ‘em.”

“Me, either,” Sam added. His tone lacked Dean’s fury, but there was no less steel in the words, his beautiful features pale and bleak with anger.

It took all of Gabriel’s considerable will not to flinch in the face of it. Sam was furious with him, feeling used and misled and rightly so. Nothing Gabriel could say or offer would absolve him of being just one more creature to make Sam feel that way.

“It’s not that simple,” Gabriel replied instead, twisting his glass in his hand and watching the jewel-like droplets circle the bottom rim. “Dad wanted humans and angels to get along, to love each other like family. He built a… yearning, you could say, into the vessels and the angels who can use them.”

“Like what kind of yearning?” Sam asked, voice icy but curious.

“Think about the best sexual chemistry you’ve ever had,” Gabriel replied after a moment’s thought. “Not just ‘the sex is decent and we’re really compatible’. I’m talking: one glance and you’re weak-kneed, rock hard, the room’s buzzing and all you can think about is needing to be naked and entangled and fucking. Touching them is like a drug, the best high in the world and you want never to come down. You want it never to stop. So you never say no.”

Both Winchesters glanced at each other. Dean remembered only one lover that had ever come close… and, even more sharply, he remembered someone who might have been exactly like that.

Sam remembered, too. Remembered so quickly it hurt to breathe; there was nowhere safe to look, nowhere to hide…

But whatever conclusions Gabriel drew from that measured potent gaze, he kept them to himself for the moment. “Now intensify that a hundred times… a thousand… until every inch of your soul and fiber of your body wants to surrender, to say yes, to be loved inside and out with the devotion that’s being radiated at you across sensory planes you didn’t know you had. It’s wired into us to love, no matter what this mess has twisted everything into. If they come to you in another vessel, an imperfect one, the flesh would act like a buffer, filtering it out a little. In the face of grace unbound… you’ll say yes before you know your brain has formed the word.”

“There can’t be nothing we can do,” Sam protested. “If Dean doesn’t go to Hell-”

“There’s nothing I can do to stop it, Sam.” Gabriel, slow and regretful, raised his eyes to meet Sam’s gaze. “The deal, yes; I could force Lilith to give up Dean’s contract easily. But sooner or later, something will come that can punch through even my defenses, and they’ll get what they want. It’s pre-ordained, Sam. It’s prophecy written before I was even made.”

“You really expect me to believe,” Dean tossed out, his words clipped, “that my deal with that crossroads bitch was pre-ordained by _Heaven_? That I’m _supposed_ to get dragged into Hell? Why?”

Gabriel’s eyes closed, shuttering against something he had not felt for far too long. The sensation was sharp, more painful than he remembered. But he could hold back neither the words nor the echo of his true voice that infused them:

**“For the Scion of Lucifer shall mark his adversary among the Scions of Michael; the Scion of the First shall bear the amulet of the warrior god, gifted by innocent hands. And when the Scion of Michael falls, he shall spill blood in the bowels of Hell, and the First Seal shall be broken. Sixty-four shall crumble, each in their turn, and the Morning Star shall rise in the East when the blood of the Mother of Demons is spilled on twice-consecrated ground, the Final Seal broken by his Scion’s own hand.”**

Even with his eyes still closed and burning at the edges with tears unshed, Gabriel could sense that there was an ebb and shift in the air of the room. Maybe Dean starting to understand. Maybe Sam not hating him quite so much. Something in the words he had spoken which resonated as a truth they could no longer ignore.

“So it could’ve been Dad.” Sam’s voice was small, numb, as guilt-laden as Gabriel felt. “I was supposed to give it to Dad that Christmas, but he didn’t show, so I gave it to Dean.”

“Michael’s name means ‘he who is like God’,” Gabriel supplied. He forced himself to open his eyes, to face the door he had opened. “And Lucifer was never able to challenge Dad directly.”

“But why us?” Sam snapped. “Why not someone else? Family trees are huge; there have to be other scions they could choose.”

“You’re scions of both Michael and Lucifer,” Gabriel reminded him softly. “Michael through your father, and Lucifer through your mother. No other vessels would be nearly as strong unless they were hanyou or nephil.”

“How long?” Dean asked tightly, topping off his scotch with steady hands.

Gabriel saw the soldier in him. Saw his eldest brother in the set of that sculpted jaw. “Until when?”

“Until we can’t hide anymore.” Dean sat back, expression walled off and silent. “Until I’m out of time.”

Sam rounded on his brother, hurt bleeding out of every inch of the younger Winchester’s body. “You can’t just give up, Dean! We can fight this, find a way around it-”

“No, Sam.” Dean’s voice fell like a hammer on a forge. “Deck’s stacked, and any hands we win now are just trading pennies in the pot. They’ll go all in sooner or later, and there’s no getting around it.”

For a long moment, the silence hung too heavy in the air, a wet woolen blanket that trapped every breath and thought and motion. Gabriel couldn’t stand it. He’d spent fifteen centuries avoiding the quiet, ignoring the lack of Music and Glory surrounding him. “They’ll come for you,” he assured Dean. Vulnerable veiled viridian flickered his way and Gabriel pulled himself together. These two were only human, barely more than children. “Michael can’t use you if you’re dead; you have to be alive and in your body to consent. He’ll send a garrison of seraphim after you; Midael’s or Anael’s, probably. They won’t just leave you there.”

“And if I’m already a demon when they get there?” Dean challenged softly.

Gabriel didn’t have an answer. He looked into Dean instead, deeper than he ever had, finding the beating soul of the man.

Michael was there, the Firstborn. The Protector. Willing to sacrifice himself and everything he loved for what was right. For Father. For family.

Edom, the first mortal child of God. Accepting punishment with grace, but refusing to regret taking the knowledge he believed was his birthright. Unwilling to accept that it had not been the right thing to do, no matter what the consequences.

Qua-yin. Shriven by God’s command of the brother he adored, then condemned for it. Challenging God as if an equal, defying him to explain why such sacrifice would be demanded if it was not truly wanted and rebelling at the notion that he had any right to absolution. Willing to spurn all sides for the love of a brother he had never forgiven himself for betraying.

“I don’t think you will be,” Gabriel told him instead. “I think you’ll surprise us all, in the end.” Dean startled, and Gabriel took a long breath he didn’t need. “Right. Okay. Enough exposition for one night; time for tired humans to get some sleep. Bedrooms are down the hall; there’s a kitchen over there if you want anything, and baths are en suite. Unlimited hot water, boys; take advantage.”

“Where are you going?” Dean demanded as Gabriel stood up.

“There’s a barrier out there keeping the puppies off the lawn,” Gabriel reminded him. “I’m gonna shore it up a bit and punch up the anchors. And then there’s the small matter of the demoness that’s been trailing you boys.”

“Ruby?” Sam sounded surprised; Gabriel could easily guess that Sam hadn’t thought the Trickster would know about her. “Why?”

“I’ve been hearing things about her,” Gabriel replied almost casually. “And that knife she’s carrying. Something doesn’t smell right, and I’m in this now. I don’t like unknowns.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dean asked. “ ‘In this’?”

Stilling for a moment, Gabriel fixed Dean with a level gaze. The air around him seemed to shiver, hints of power raising the hair at the napes of both humans’ necks. “I’ve been in hiding for fifteen hundred years. I wanted no part in this: couldn’t help Michael kill Lucifer any more than I could Lucifer Michael. But I’ve been… persuaded that maybe, just maybe, you two chuckleheads could do better than them. And you’ll need my help. So I’m in.” Before either Winchester could say another word, there was a rustle of wings, and the archangel was gone.

* * *

By the time Ruby arrived at Lilith’s side, there was little the elder demoness could seem to do besides curse in tongues dead before man first developed symbols to represent their words. The Winchesters were within a haven protected by a shield wall far more powerful than anything Ruby had encountered before. Apparently powerful enough to keep Lilith from breaching it.

Her orders were simple: keep a few hounds with her, and find a way to kill both Dean and whatever was helping the Winchesters.

“That won’t make it any easier to get to Sam,” she offered carefully. It was often worth her life to proffer anything but acquiescence if Lilith wasn’t asking for it.

This time was no exception. The hand of Lilith’s vessel flew and caught her across the cheek, sending her reeling into a nearby tree. “Sam Winchester’s ire is the least of our concerns,” she hissed, traces of her true voice lacing every syllable. “Whoever has aided them is using magicks far older than either Winchester has had access to before. If they are told of the prophecy…” White eyes glittered with suppressed rage. “I don’t care what you have to do. Dean Winchester must be cast into the Pit; Alastair already awaits him. And this new ally they’ve found, whoever it is, must be silenced. Samuel Winchester is _my_ destiny, and our meeting _must_ come to pass.”

Ruby gauged Lilith as she wiped blood from her mouth, feeling the cut on her lip heal over even as she righted herself. “As you will, my Lady.”

And so, Ruby waited, the hellhounds prowling the edges of the shield wall in search of any weakness. The fact that the Winchesters had an ally so powerful now bothered her almost as much as it did Lilith; she’d been steadily worming her way into Sam’s confidence for months, and he was very nearly ready to take her advice over Dean’s. If this new player mended the rift she’d been steadily widening… if Sam stopped seeing his brother as someone that didn’t care about what happened to Sam after he was dead…

She didn’t sense him until it was too late, her hand only halfway to her knife’s hilt when a wall slammed into her. Before she could strike back, Ruby was upside down in midair, bound by nothing but chains of invisible force, blonde hair streaming around her face and eyes clouding black in panic.

“So _you’re_ the little vixen they sent,” came a mocking voice from behind a nearby tree. “I’m surprised; you’re not really his type.”

“I’m not yours, either,” Ruby spat. There wasn’t much room to move, and whoever he was, the bastard was stronger than anything she’d encountered before. “So this little bondage act ain’t cutting any ice.”

A sharp-faced, golden-eyed man slid from behind the tree, arms crossed and expression amusedly assessing as he closed on her. “Gotta be the attitude that’s got him interested,” he mused. “He’s got a thing for brunettes… but then, Lilith has always preferred to wear blondes, hasn’t she?”

Ruby froze. “All I’m hearing is noise,” she snapped, covering fast. “You gonna find a point before I die of boredom?”

Shrugging, he reached up and plucked the knife, sheath and all, from her belt. Ignoring the black swirl in her eyes, her outraged cry and her renewed struggles, he drew the blade and examined the engravings. “Not bad,” he observed, canting the blade to catch the dim light. “She gave you this, didn’t she? She’s one of the few that could even understand the sigils anymore.” Smiling like a child, he trailed the flat of the blade against the tendrils of her hair.

“Look, pal,” Ruby snarled, trying to cover her fear, “I don’t know who the Hell you think you are, but-”

“Gave you license and means to kill anyone you need to if it’ll earn their trust and a vessel that’s not overly appealing to either one on the outset,” he observed mildly. “Let me guess: you get past their defenses, and then switch with Lilith at the last minute. Lilith deals with Dean, and gets an emotionally-devastated, powerfully brassed-off Boy King who’s ripe for the picking. You waltz back in wearing a brunette he won’t ignore, hook him with vengeance, ply him with blood and seal it with sex. That about right?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Ruby’s mind was reeling, desperate to identify this new player. She’d never seen him before, and he didn’t feel like a demon. But whoever he was, he’d somehow managed to suss out more than anyone, even some of the highest-ranking demons in Hell, about Lilith’s plan to ensure that Lucifer rose in accordance with the prophecy.

Amber eyes flickered over her again, still lit with smug amusement. “And I’m sure you’ll say that to your dying breath. After all, I can only imagine what sort of things you had to do to prove to Lilith that you could be her ultimate double agent. I’ve known that woman longer than you can possibly imagine, and she definitely does not trust easily: demons or anything else.”

“Who the Hell are you?” she hissed, renewing her struggles against the invisible restraints.

“It’s not really going to matter,” he replied, his tone as casual as a discussion of the weather. “Whatever Lilith’s plans for you and Sam are, they’re not coming to pass, and you’re not running back to tell her I’ve taken the field.”

“Kill me,” Ruby threatened furiously, “and legions will follow. You really think you can defeat us with a few minorly cute tricks and a sharp comeback or two?”

Without warning, she was released. Not bothering to question it, Ruby took off running, trying to put as much distance as possible between she and whoever the son of a bitch was…

The son of a bitch was right in front of her. She was slamming into him and bouncing away, stumbling back before she knew it, his sardonic expression now lit with a lethally dangerous gleam. “I’ve got more tricks at my disposal than you can conceive, little girl,” he purred quietly. “And maybe they’ll defeat the armies of Hell. Maybe they won’t. Maybe all that will happen is I’ll end up in Purgatory for my trouble. But either way, you and Lilith are going there first.”

Ruby turned, coiled to run. Hands caught her face; in a blink, he had gotten around her, cutting off her escape. Eyes of molten gold were staring down into her own, and there was a glow burning in their depths that the Darkness that consumed her recognized on instinct. The light grew, intensifying, refusing to allow her to look away even as the hands gripping her face began to burn.

“I doubt Lilith will follow you before she and I see each other again,” that voice whispered into the heat and light consuming her. “But just in case she does, tell Lilith when she gets there that **the ArchHerald of ---- sends his regards**.”

The eyes of Ruby’s vessel barely had time to widen in shock before her awareness was engulfed in Light, and she knew no more.


	5. The Mask I Have Outworn – Part Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see Chapter One for warnings, disclaimers and notes.

~ooooOOOoooo~

 

The brothers sat in long, heavy silence in the archangel’s wake. Sam swallowed the last of his scotch in one gulp, tears burning almost worse than the liquor. There was no saving his brother. There never had been. And his vengeance, if he took it, would kickstart the end of days.

“Sam?” Dean set his own empty glass down, peering at his little brother in concern. Sam wasn’t likely to be taking any of this well and as emo as he usually was, his little brother shouldn’t be this quiet.

“I really thought…” Sam’s voice caught, broke, recovered. “I thought we could save you.”

“Not this time, I guess.” Dean took a breath, then stood and paced, deep in thought. He wasn’t getting out of this one; he knew that much. Hell was coming; had been forever, if he believed the Trickster.

But if he _did_ believe the Trickster, then everything they’d been told by him dramatically changed Dean’s perspective. He wasn’t just dying for his father’s edict to protect Sam no matter what. Wasn’t just selling his soul to save Sam’s life. And he wasn’t going to be left in Hell to burn. His mother had been right: angels _were_ watching over him, because they needed something from him. Which meant there was still a game to be played: one Dean intended to win.

“Dean, there’s still a chance we can still stop this,” Sam said, desperation ringing in his voice. “If we can stop Lilith… kill her before you go to hell-”

“Don’t, Sam.” Dean shook his head almost instantly. “We can’t get bogged down in this.”

“But if we can stop it before it starts-”

“It started before we were born, Sam!” Dean couldn’t stop from rounding on his younger brother, much as he hated doing so. He had to get through this, which meant he needed Sam on board. “You heard what he said, Sam. Even if you don’t buy the whole prophecy thing, just look at how things have gone down our whole lives. Dad doesn’t make a deal to save me? Life I’ve led, I’m headed downstairs guaranteed. You go Vader at Cold Oak instead of getting stabbed? Nice big Hell-gate I can get dragged through trying to stop you. That crossroads bitch wouldn’t deal? That Hell-gate’s still an option and I woulda taken it in a minute to get you back. I was always going, Sam. A hundred different ways I could’ve gone before now, and sooner or later, no matter what we do, it’s gonna happen.”

“I don’t care, Dean!” Sam was in Dean’s face, grabbing Dean’s shoulders and half-shaking him. “I won’t watch you die again! We’re gonna stop this; we have to-”

Dean reached up, grabbed Sam’s face in both hands, lacing his fingers into that ridiculously soft hair and pulling until their foreheads touched. The contact drove a half sob from one of them; maybe both, and Dean had to close his eyes, fighting urges screaming in his blood that he had no name for.

“Need you to hear me on this, Sam,” Dean pleaded. Knew he was pleading and didn’t care. “Our whole damn lives, we’ve been fighting back against this and never knew what we were fightin’ or why. Trying to keep the ground under us from caving in not knowing who was digging the hole. But we know now. This ain’t just about me giving the only thing I got to keep you alive. It’s bigger… Jesus, Sammy, it’s so much fucking bigger than both of us… and we gotta carry it and it ain’t fair.

“But we know now, Sam. We know shit now we didn’t before.” Dean opened his eyes; Sam mirrored him out of instinct, brokenly gazing into shining viridian eyes. “We know what they want, Sam… after all this time, we know what the bastards’ endgame is. And we know… we know I can come back to you.”

Sam choked out Dean’s name. Dean stayed with him, easing back just enough to see Sam’s face but keeping a tight grip on him. “It wasn’t my last Christmas. I’m coming back. And when I get back, we’re not gonna play by their rules. No more flying blind. We’re gonna take the fight to them and we’re gonna do it our way. They want to keep fucking with us? Send me to Hell to be tortured? We’re gonna fuck ‘em over three times worse. Ram it right down their throats and make ‘em regret the day they decided they could try and take away everything we’ve ever had. But I need you safe while I’m gone, Sam. Need you in research mode, not revenge. You gotta promise me, Sammy… you gotta promise you’ll stay safe till I get back.”

A tortured moment, tears streaming freely from Sam’s eyes, and then Sam nodded. “I promise, Dean… I won’t go after Lilith, or any of the others, while you’re…”

“Gone,” Dean supplied quickly. It was the easiest word he could think of, the only one either of them would be able to bear. “While I’m gone.”

“Yeah.” Sam swallowed hard, gathering himself. “We should get something to eat, Dean… your bottomless stomach must think you’ve abandoned it by now. And I need a shower.”

Dean nodded, smiling tremulously, proud of his brother for being able to pull himself together and see past revenge. It was a feat his father had never been able to accomplish. “Food, shower, sleep. Tomorrow, we start making plans. We’re gonna have one Helluva hunt on our hands when this part’s over.”

Sam gave his brother a crooked smile and a soft laugh, pulling free of his brother’s hands as they went to see what Gabriel’s kitchen had on offer.

And if he touched Dean in passing more than usual, if Dean gave him a few more friendly shoulder bumps or stayed within Sam’s reach more than he had in years, neither of them remarked on it. It was no one’s business but their own.

* * *

They didn’t see Gabriel again until midday the next day. They’d slept in, spent the morning talking and planning for the next step, Dean keeping his brother in research mode and trying to distract him from thinking about what was going to happen in the interim. Gabriel sauntered in, wrapped in a careless air and casting an appraising eye over the notes scattered across the table in the great room. “Trying to stay caught up on your homework?”

“Makin’ plans,” Dean replied, snapping a little. “Trouble outside?”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle.” Gabriel retrieved Ruby’s blade from his jacket and tossed it onto the table between the humans. “You might want to hang onto that. It’s more powerful than most of what’s in your arsenal, and it never needs reloading.”

“That’s Ruby’s.” Sam didn’t even have to touch it to know, his gaze flickering between it and the archangel almost accusingly.

“Not anymore.” Gabriel met his eyes calmly, hating the way it felt to have walls between him and Sam now. After everything that had passed between them less than a week ago, he wanted something entirely different. Something he was fairly certain he couldn’t have.

It didn’t stop him from remembering the way Sam looked cloaked in nothing but wanton abandon and firelight or from wanting to see it again.

Sam’s jaw set on those words, knowing what they meant. “You didn’t have to kill her. She was helping us; could have given us more information-”

“She was Lilith’s own little Mata Hari,” Gabriel returned, voice cutting like an ice blade. “You two keep thinking this fight’s ever gonna be straightforward or fair and none of us are gonna make it through alive. Lilith is older than you boys can conceive, more powerful than you can understand, and she isn’t above playing dirty. You’re already susceptible to blood magick because of what Azazel did, and sex magick would just be an added noose around your neck.”

“So Ruby was supposed to… what, exactly?” Sam’s voice was just as cold, hazel eyes dark and angry. “Sabotage our offensive against Lilith at the last second? She wanted to help us stop Lilith-”

A growl from Gabriel cut him off. “Sam… I swear sometimes you’re intentionally thick. There’s no other reason for it. _Lilith wants you to kill her._ We are talking about the first woman Dad ever made, cast out of Eden because she refused to submit to Father’s Will. She wandered for years before Lucifer found her and showed her the Dark; she _willingly_ took it into herself, let it consume her and make her into a demon. She _is_ the last Seal, Sam. Her blood spilled by your hand is the last Key to Lucifer’s Cage. She’s not playing against you two, or the angels, or anyone else. Her war is with Dad, and if her death puts Lucifer one step closer to the prize fight with Michael, she’ll go to it with a song in her Chaos-blackened heart.”

“Why?” Dean asked carefully, sensing the tension radiating between his brother and the Trickster. “What does she get out of their prize fight?”

“One of Dad’s first and brightest children dead, and the world He created for Edom laid to waste, all of his descendants destroyed.” Gabriel never looked away from Sam. “Immortals play long games, very often bloody and not caring very much if innocent bystanders get annihilated. Ruby’s only mission was to earn your trust, foster all those angry, vengeance-fueled thoughts you keep having, and put you in the right place at the right time to gut Lilith like a fish.”

“So why kill her?” Sam was shaken, still not wrapping his head around what Gabriel was saying. It made no sense to him that Lilith was only gunning for him and Dean so that they would have a reason to kill her. He couldn’t understand the motives, couldn’t make the logic function. “Why not just run her off?”

“Because I don’t want her creeping up on the sidelines and whispering in your ear, Sam.” Gabriel’s voice softened just a little, just enough to be noticeable. “Way I see it: you’ve had enough of being used by non-humans to further their own ends. I don’t want to see what one more betrayal would do to you.”

The words unspoken were still loud enough to hear, at least between him and Sam. _I don’t want you to end up like my brother: twisted by betrayal and consumed with revenge._

Sam’s face set, his jaw tight enough that his teeth ground audibly. Without a word, he stood and stalked from the room. Dean watched him go, watched him emerge onto the wrap-around porch, huge hands taking hold of the railing and gripping nearly tight enough to splinter the wood. “He’s not taking this well,” he observed softly.

“Direct opposite of you,” Gabriel remarked, hating himself for how angry Sam was. This was the worst part of being the ArchHerald of God, delivering the Word of Heaven. “It was like this between them, too, before Heylel Fell.”

Grunting an acknowledgment, Dean turned his attention to the angel. “They’re gonna wait us out, ain’t they?”

“Likely.” Gabriel sat with a sigh, snapping a tall mimosa into his hand. “They don’t know what I am, so they don’t know they can’t starve us out. We can hole up here indefinitely, if need be.”

“Patience ain’t their strong suit,” Dean reminded him. “Sooner or later, it’s gonna come to a fight. And when it does, I lose.” Gabriel’s silence was confirmation enough of his conclusions. Dean nodded grimly, half to himself. “So we plan for a way out that makes sure you and Sam get through.”

“We’re not making a suicide run,” Gabriel snapped. “I’m not putting Sam back together after that; the only reason he’s still verbal right now is because you weren’t really dead in that time loop I stuck you in.”

“We may not have a choice.” Dean’s voice was practical, calm, as if he wasn’t discussing a scenario that would end in his rather gory and painful demise.

“Then we do it if there’s no other choice.” Pure stubborn took over, the implacable will born of immortality ringing in his tone.

Dean quirked one eyebrow. “For a guy that set me up to die a few hundred times, the idea of me getting killed don’t seem to set too well.”

“I was making a point, you clod.” Gabriel drained his mimosa without tasting it, irritable for a dozen formless reasons. “If I’d been doing it because I actually wanted to kill you, you’d remember every single death I visited on you.”

A half-smile quirked Dean’s lips. “That so, huh?”

Growling a little, Gabriel threw Dean a sullen look. “What do you want me to say, Winchester? That despite the fact you tried to kill me back in Springfield, I kinda like your style? I told you then I’d run across hunters before: dour, humorless types like your pal Bobby that are all business or just plain homicidal maniacs bent on annihilating non-humans. You two… you’re not just good at it. You have a passion for it. You _love_ it.

“I could tell in your eyes even then that a good kill probably gets you horny as Hell, that you start itching for a hunt if you go too long without. Same with Sam, though he tries to hide it. It brings out everything in you both that I loved best about my brothers before all this nonsense went down.” Gabriel took in the startled widening of Dean’s eyes, the vaguest hint of vulnerability in them. “You deserve better than to be screwed over your whole lives, used by my brothers to have out their little spat and then the one who survives gets discarded like a used condom while the other winds up in the ground. So no, Dean: I don’t like the idea of you dying and going to Hell. And not just because I don’t want the First Seal broken. If that upsets your perceived order of the universe, that’s just too fucking bad.”

Dean was quiet for a long moment; what he might have been thinking, Gabriel couldn’t possibly tell. The archangel pushed himself to his feet and was halfway from the room when he heard, almost soft enough to be missed: “Glad I didn’t kill you.”

Stilling, Gabriel turned, meeting Dean’s eyes. That hint of vulnerability was still around the edges of Dean’s expression, his viridian eyes large in the soft light of the room. “I told you then I liked your sense of humor. I meant it. There haven’t been many things I’ve regretted killing in my life. So… yeah.”

Gabriel nodded, some of the irritation he’d been feeling draining away. There was an understanding between them, at least, no matter what Dean truly believed about his identity. Respect, too, and maybe, just possibly, the beginnings of friendship.

The weight of loneliness that had plagued him for fifteen centuries seemed a little bit lighter, and Gabriel walked into the kitchen to see about whipping up something for his exasperating new wards’ lunch.

* * *

Three days passed. Dean sent a text to Bobby on the second day, letting the elder hunter know that both Sam and he were safe and that they would fill him in regarding the details soon. Bobby’s response was a clipped voicemail calling them both idjits ten times in the span of sixty seconds and bluntly informing them that he wanted answers as soon as the brothers deigned to read him in.

Gabriel was giving both hunters as much space as he could manage, keeping an eye on the perimeter for any sign that Lilith’s demonic lackeys and their Hellhounds had withdrawn. They were waiting, just beyond visible sight, but Gabriel could sense them.

It was quickly growing apparent that Lilith’s forces were going to lie in wait until he tried to evacuate the humans. There was little doubt, even if he destroyed them before leaving, that the three of them would be under siege wherever they went. Which was precisely what he told Dean.

They were alone. Sam had gone to bed early, still emotionally wrung out and more than a little depressed. Dean didn’t even have the heart to jibe at him about it anymore; he understood the reasons all too well. So he stood with Gabriel in the kitchen, pouring himself a tall drink of above-top-shelf whiskey, quietly discussing their rapidly dwindling options.

“Their orders are probably to wait us out no matter how long it takes and then kill us both.” Gabriel’s voice was soft in the shadows, watching with somber eyes as Dean tipped back liquor like fruit juice. “You to get you into Hell, and me to isolate Sam.”

“Could they?” Dean asked, curious. “Kill you, I mean?”

“No. There’s a possibility that one of ‘em’s got enough mojo to slow me down, but it’s unlikely.” Giving a casual shrug, Gabriel came to stand beside Dean, leaning against the low marble counter behind them. “Only thing that can kill me on this plane is another archangel.”

“On this plane?” Dean echoed.

“There are a few things that can harm me in my pure form,” Gabriel elaborated. “Creatures of pure darkness that can’t exist on this level of reality. Not even Lilith is dark enough or powerful enough to control them, and certainly couldn’t bring them to bear in this little siege.”

Dean was quiet for a long moment. “So… if I walked out there, let them take me…”

“No.” Gabriel cut him off, not wanting to even discuss it. “No, Dean, we are not-”

“What we are is out of options, Gabe!” Dean hissed furiously. “Maybe not out of time, but definitely out of options.” Pushing away from the counter, Dean set to pacing, trying to think. “We run, they’ll follow. We hide here, they’ll always be right outside, and patience ain’t their strong suit. Sooner or later, they’ll start trying to punch holes in that shield you’ve got around this place and then we’re all screwed. That might sound like a swell plan to you, Mr. Invincible, but I ain’t waitin’ around for a demon to choose how and when I die.”

“So you’re gonna… what?” Gabriel asked, sarcasm ringing in his voice. “Take a long walk off a short pier? Hope they decide that mauling you to death was enough fun and leave?”

“I was more thinkin’ walking out there with as many salt rounds in as many guns as I can carry.” Dean smiled a little, the vicious, brittle smile of a man knowing his death was near. “Take out as many as I can before they take me down. While they’re distracted with me, you and Sam get out. Get to one of those other havens you mentioned. There’s a chance they won’t follow… but even if they do, can you keep Sam safe?”

“You really are insane.” Gabriel shook his head. “I mean, I knew you were a muttonhead from the minute we met, but this-”

“Just answer the question, dammit!” Dean rounded on the Trickster… _archangel_ , he had to remind himself. “Can you keep him safe?”

Gabriel’s eyes were muted pools of dark amber, all traces of teasing slipping away. “I’ll do everything in my power, Dean… but we both know even that may not be enough.”

Slowly, Dean nodded, feeling his anger deflate a little. It was, in the end, all he could really ask on that front. “Then I want you to promise me one last thing.”

“I doubt it’ll be the last thing you ever ask of me,” Gabriel replied, a sardonic undercurrent slipping back into his tone. “But shoot.”

Dean took a long, slow breath, trying to make sure he said this right. “If I’m… if they find me, and it’s too late… if I’ve turned… they’ll probably just leave me there, won’t they?” A flicker of something like pain crossed those sharp features as Gabriel nodded mutely. “Then you gotta promise you won’t.”

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

“You heard me.” Dean’s hands were shaking, but his voice was steady and his eyes never left Gabriel’s face. “If I turn completely, I want you to promise you’ll destroy me. Because if you don’t, you know what’ll happen. You want me to believe you are who you say you are? Not just pulling some colossal practical joke? Then you promise me that, right now.”

For a moment, Gabriel was absolutely floored. He wanted to deny it, to refuse that it would even be necessary. He wanted Dean to have hope, because that would be the only thing that could possibly keep him from turning completely. But Dean was standing there, serious jade eyes and luminous features and aching, frightened soul… not frightened of Hell but of what Hell could create of him… and Gabriel couldn’t help himself.

Those ribbon-candy lips sealed to Dean’s before he could question it, stealing sound and despair and thought beyond the press of one lithe body against the other. “I promise,” Gabriel whispered. “If you’ve turned… I promise, Dean.”

Dean stared down at the angel, arms tight around his lithe form in an instinctive move to catch the body that had suddenly wrapped into his own. “Jesus… don’t you guys seal deals with anything but a kiss?”

Mischievous gold sparkled in Dean’s vision, a devilish smile on a suddenly tempting mouth. “Depends on the deal, Deano.”

He should put the angel down. Should let the Trickster go and step clear. It flustered Dean a little that his muscles wouldn’t obey his commands, keeping the archangel close enough to feel his heartbeat thudding in his chest, the sudden spike of heat below his waist. “Must make it tough to keep things in perspective.”

“Not always.” Dean licked his lips; Gabriel followed the motion with his eyes. A reckless impulse flared through him, the offer sailing past his lips before he could think better of it. “Every dying man deserves one last hurrah, you know. Especially if he’s about to make a suicide run.”

Dean’s eyes narrowed, searching for something in Gabriel’s bright amber eyes.

Whatever it was, whether he did or didn’t find it, the archangel would never be sure. Because the next thing Gabriel knew, Dean was spinning them, bracing him against the low counter, fingers yanking at the buttons of Gabriel’s shirt and shoving the material off his arms. Gabriel wrestled, freed himself, only to have Dean crumple the shirt into a ball and toss it aside while Gabriel attacked his.

Kisses traded almost savagely, stolen clashes of teeth and tongues and breath. Fingers struggled with fabric, pulling and grappling with sweat-slick skin. Somewhere in the haze, Dean had lube in his hands and Gabriel was spread beneath his touch, hands threaded in Dean’s short hair and mouthing kisses along Dean’s neck.

“Come on.” The words panted themselves in Dean’s ear, an immortal voice reedy and wrecked from ragged need. “Come on… come on…”

Fingers that had been working deep slid out. Dean’s hands wrapped around the archangel’s waist and tugged, canting slim hips forward and down into his own. A moan pulled free of Gabriel’s throat, his legs wrapping around Dean’s waist, one hand reaching up to claw at the cabinets above him, fingers scrabbling across the smooth surface as Dean drove up into him, gravity riding him back down against every sharp, urgent thrust of the human’s hips.

Callused hands gripped hard enough to bruise, breath rasping between broken syllables. Dean couldn’t take his eyes off the abandoned seraph under him, the way golden eyes shuttered, tawny eyelashes fluttering in half-circles against moon-pale cheekbones. Gabriel’s fingers closed on a cabinet handle, giving him a little more leverage, letting him shift his weight and slide his legs just a fraction higher up Dean’s ribs.

Dean drove hard, finally catching that perfect angle.

Gabriel’s entire body jerked, the cabinet handle he’d been gripping tearing free. Dean’s name was falling from his lips, a litany chanted against the shadowed curve of Dean’s neck as Dean found his footing and hammered into the archangel with everything he could muster, emotions he couldn’t name pouring through him and dragging him closer and closer…

“Now,” he growled, unable to reach between them, concentrating on tagging the angle on every stroke and driving the archangel over the edge with him. “Now, damn it… now… come on…”

It wasn’t like Sam; Dean’s voice alone wasn’t enough. But then Dean’s hips were stuttering against his own, the warmth of the hunter’s release flooding deep and a long moan breaking over the perfect bow of his lips, and Gabriel let go, let himself be pulled under in Dean’s wake as his own climax splashed between them.

The air seemed to shake in the aftermath, Dean’s forehead coming to rest against Gabriel’s as breath shivered between their still open mouths. Dean’s hands shifted Gabriel just enough, letting the archangel rest a little more solidly on the counter, the archangel’s fingers slowly relaxing out of the bruising grip they’d dug into Dean’s shoulder blade.

“We should…” Dean tried to find words. He really did. None seemed right, anything he might say inadequate.

“Yeah.” Gabriel nudged Dean’s cheek with his nose, opening his eyes. Dean’s were gazing down into his, luminous jade surrounding pupils blown wide. How this brash, beautiful man fooled anyone with his buffoonish exterior was beyond him in that moment, seeing the soul that lay beneath: vulnerable and giving and kind, aching to be loved.

He didn’t want to think about what awaited that soul in Hell. Only knew that it would take a level of devotion unheard of among humans to heal the wounds Dean would suffer there.

Willing his free hand to release the cabinet handle it still clutched, the metal clattered to the floor as Gabriel snapped his fingers. In a moment, they were in Dean’s bedroom, braced with Gabriel’s back against a wall and Dean’s weight holding them upright. “Much fun as kitchen sex is,” he offered, a teasing lilt belying the dagger-strike of hurt his thoughts were causing, “I doubt you want us scarring Sam’s retinas if he should walk in looking for a midnight snack.”

Dean let out a chuckle at the image, leaning close to brush an open kiss to those soft lips. “Yeah… the bitchface he’d throw would be hilarious… but it’s a serious mood killer.” Hauling their weight away from the wall, Dean reeled around and tumbled them across the room, into the bed, sprawling with the decadent archangel across his soft mattress. “And I’m not through with you yet, Trickster.”

Gabriel’s laugh was cut off as Dean’s hips rolled intently against his own.

* * *

There was a difference between contact and cuddling, Dean liked to think. There was nothing wrong with letting a lover rest against you after mind-blowing sex; it restored the equilibrium, really, and provided opportunities to tease each other into readiness for another round. So Gabriel tucking against his side, head resting comfortably against the hollow of his shoulder, wasn’t cuddling. Wasn’t snuggling, either. They were just resting.

And the way Gabriel’s hand stroked lightly over his chest was just a little residual energy. Archangels don’t wear out that fast, after all.

“I’m sorry,” the angel murmured.

Dean glanced down, a little surprised. “For what?”

Shifting, the ArchHerald of God crooked his arm across Dean’s stomach, resting his chin on Dean’s chest. “What’s coming… what’s about to happen to you, to the world…? I could’ve changed the course of it a dozen times over since we first met. But nothing I could do would prevent it from happening in some way or other... and I wish I could.”

There was a strange swell of emotion in Dean’s chest, sending his fingers up to tangle in the sun-kissed tresses framing the angel’s sharp face. “My time’s been up for two years man… nothing anybody can do about that.”

“Why are mortals so thick?” Gabriel groused, pushing himself up to glare down at Dean in stern recrimination. “Your times been far from ‘up’, Dean Winchester. Fate uses Her chosen hard and She doesn’t let them die before She’s done with them. That Reaper had no idea who you were, and if your father hadn’t made a deal with Azazel, Michael would’ve dropped you right back into your meatsuit before you’d’ve gotten past Peter’s Gate.” Dean blinked and Gabriel relented a little, eyes softening as he brushed light fingers over Dean’s heart. “Just like Sam wasn’t meant to die at Jake’s hands, you weren’t meant to die in that car crash. You’ve got too much to do.”

“But I was meant to go to Hell.” It wasn’t a question, the words bitter as ash. “Go to Hell and be tortured until I’m a monster… until I’m just like them.”

Regret welled in Gabriel’s eyes. He kissed Dean to hide it, letting a trickle of grace bleed into his caresses as he pressed as close to the hunter as he could get. By the time the kiss ended, their positions were reversed, with Dean resting against the cradle of his hips and those skillful hands cupping his face.

“Listen to me, kiddo,” Gabriel murmured. “And remember it well, ‘cause it’s important.”

“What?”

Gabriel hesitated, stealing another almost chaste kiss from Dean’s lips. “They’re going to break you,” he said, a soft tone unable to mask the harsh reality. “Ten years, fifty… time flows slowly in Hell and it will happen eventually.” Dean looked away, started to get up; Gabriel grabbed his face in both hands and held him, forcing Dean to meet his eyes. “There is no shame in breaking there, you get me? _None…_ because it means there was something in you to break. And in my Father’s Name, I swear that what they break, I will mend, one way or another.”

“In God’s name, huh?” Dean’s heart was cracking apart in his chest, agony threatening to choke him.

“Yes, Dean.” The archangel’s eyes were molten gold, glowing in the darkness. “In the Name of my Father, by whose Will I was spun from nothing and at whose Request did I vow to love humans above even Him: if it takes every ounce of Strength and Grace He gave me, I will heal the wounds Hell inflicts upon you or be destroyed in the attempt. I will not allow you to linger for one moment more than necessary in the Dark they will visit upon you. I have judged you, in my Father’s Name, and you deserve nothing less.”

Tears spilled free, tears Dean would never admit to shedding. Gabriel leaned up, kissing them away, each brush of his lips and sliding caress of his fingers a benediction.

Words poured out as Dean slid into him again, still stretched and slick; a litany of Enochian that forgave before sin was committed, that offered solace to inure against pain. Clinging to the human with arms and legs and will, Gabriel let Dean take what he needed, deep and achingly slow, and whispered a never-ending stream of comfort in the language of God’s first children.

Release seemed to wrench out of both of them, hard won and bone shaking. Dean collapsed into the angel as Gabriel’s magic whispered the sticky away, and the angel gathered the hunter close, pressing his lips to the shaking mortal’s temple. _What grace is given me, let it pass to him. Let it be a light in the dark; let it protect him from becoming what he fears. Father… Yeshua, my Brother… my Lady Fate… please… by what grace I still possess, let him be spared that, at least._

Shaking breath steadied, deepened. Gabriel held the fragile youth in his arms as Dean finally slept, fingers stroking soothing patterns down Dean’s spine as he wove wards into the human’s dreams.

* * *

It was perhaps an hour before dawn when Gabriel finally left Dean’s side, unable to remain any longer. The fact that he needed no sleep meant that when he could not fully relax, he had no chance of resting at all, and his mind was too crowded to allow him any solace just now.

He was surprised to see Sam sitting up in the great room, a mug of coffee within reach and his eyes flickering over his computer screen. For a heart-stopping moment, he wondered if Sam had heard his and Dean’s passionate encounter. He didn’t need a confrontation with Sam right now; didn’t want to think about how Sam might feel. There had been no understanding between them; their own liaison had been a business arrangement of Sam’s own making. Gabriel had no reason to think Sam would be at all affronted; no cause to believe that Sam felt any of the emotional repercussions that Gabriel did in the aftermath of their day together.

But he still felt a spike of fear that Sam knew, and was hurt or angry. “Sam?”

“Hey.” Sam looked up, exhaustion hovering around his eyes but nothing of what Gabriel had feared. Either he’d slept too deeply to hear them or Gabriel’s instinct to soundproof against outsiders had kicked in without his realizing it. “I was… just trying to think. There’s got to be some way we can shake these bastards, Gabriel. We can’t just hide in here forever; sooner or later, they’re gonna come after Dean.”

If it had been anyone else, or at any other time, Gabriel might have kept Sam in the dark about what Dean had confessed to planning. But Gabriel had seen Dean’s intention to slip out before Sam woke or after Sam went to bed at some point in the next few days. He couldn’t just let Sam get blindsided by it. “Sam… last night… Dean, he…”

Sam sat up straighter, suddenly afraid. “What? Gabriel, what?”

Gabriel steeled himself. “He’s going to make a suicide run. Take out as many Hellhounds and demons as he can before they take him down, maybe distract them long enough for me to get you to another haven.”

Every last drop of blood drained from Sam’s face. He sat for a moment, drawn and horrified, staring at the archangel as if he couldn’t understand the words that had just been spoken. “He’s…” Swallowing, Sam looked away, then back at Gabriel. “You’re sure?”

Nodding, Gabriel made no attempt to hide how much it hurt him to think about it as well. “He told me last night. There’s no talking him out of it, either. He’s made up his mind.”

Running a hand through his hair, Sam stood and paced. Gabriel watched as Sam’s eyes went from huge and frightened to half-wild and calculating; his strides were long and undirected, carrying him in formless patterns around the furniture as his thoughts roiled behind those green-gold eyes.

Finally turning, Sam met Gabriel’s golden, worried gaze. “If Dean dies… what are the odds the demons and Hellhounds will stay and try for us?”

It was a question Gabriel hadn’t expected. He should have been ready for anything; Sam was showing an alarming capacity to surprise him. “Depends on Lilith’s orders. With Ruby dead, she may have decided to cut her losses and just concentrate on getting to Dean. Or she may be determined to ensure that anyone and everyone keeping you from going _**Kill Bill**_ on her is torn to shreds for their interference.”

“You know her.” Sam’s voice was low and urgent, betraying the tumbling nature of his thoughts. “You’ve known her since she was created; know what she’s capable of. What do you think?”

“I think, honestly, she’s going to want more information about me before she tries again,” Gabriel answered after a moment. “She might leave a lurker or two, see if they can catch a break if we try to leave, but there’s no doubt my taking out Ruby is going to leave her cautious. She’s too close to her goal to fall short now by taking foolish chances.” Sam nodded slowly, eyes bright, thoughts churning visibly behind them. “Sam… Sam, what are you thinking?”

A deep, slow breath, filling and emptying his lungs. “Dad… he told Dean that if I ever turned… if I turned and he couldn’t save me, Dad told Dean to kill me.” Sam ignored the recoil on Gabriel’s face, barely recognizing the parallel that request would invoke. “I made him make the same promise to me. I was… drunk and freaked out, and I made him promise me he’d kill me if I went dark side.”

Realization of what Sam was driving at washed through Gabriel like ice. He couldn’t begin to calculate the cost to Sam of the action the hunter was proposing. Even if it was a clean death, the kind of death Dean deserved, Gabriel couldn’t let Sam do it. “No… Sam, you can’t. Dean would never let you take that on yourself; you know that! If that’s how you want this to happen, I’ll do it. A snap of my fingers and he’s gone for real this time; no pain, nothing-”

“No.” Sam shook his head, ignoring the way Gabriel had risen and walked towards him as if proximity might dissuade him. “No, Gabriel; it can’t be you. It… if you killed him for real, sent him to Hell for real… it’ll always be there between us. I’ll hate you for it… I knew it wasn’t real back in Florida. Even that Wednesday, I could sense it was still you behind it. It wasn’t real. This would be.” Sam took another breath, this one shorter, almost pained. “Dean would do it for me, Gabriel. I can’t not do it for him, and I can’t let you to do it for me.”

Of all the things he’d ever seen or heard from the Winchesters, this reminded him so sharply of both Michael and Lucifer that it physically hurt. Tears threatened at the corners of his eyes, mirrored in Sam’s. “Sam…”

“Can you just make sure?” Sam pleaded. “Just… make sure he doesn’t wake up?”

Gabriel wanted to protest. To take the burden onto himself. He could live with Sam’s resentment, would carry the blame willingly. He’d allowed this, in the end, by not revealing himself a year ago. The moment Gabriel had seen the Winchester brothers, he should have taken steps, but he’d willfully ignored what their presence presaged, the future they were harbingers of just by breathing. And now they were all damned. War would come. And Gabriel, who had never intended to take part, now felt an inescapable responsibility to the men at the heart of it.

He had let it come to this. Dean’s blood was already on his hands. But Sam wouldn’t let him take this. Wouldn’t let his brother die at another’s hands.

“Yes, Sam.” Gabriel held himself still, held the anguished hazel gaze. This, too, was his sin to bear. “I can make sure.”

Those green-gold eyes shuttered closed. A deep breath, almost a prayer for strength. And then Sam turned, walking towards the bedroom where Dean slept.

A whisper of power; Dean wouldn’t wake, no matter what happened. Gabriel didn’t need to move. Could just wait here until it was done. Had given what he’d agreed to, and had only to put Sam back together when it was over.

The archangel fell in behind Sam, matching his steps on silent, bare feet. The younger Winchester was clad in jeans and boxers; nothing else. He walked directly to Dean’s room, making no stops along the way. Gabriel wondered vaguely what Sam was planning… if Sam even had a plan at all.

One last hesitation. Sam’s hand hovered, paused in the act of reaching for the knob. Silence hung heavy in the air; sound felt muffled, as if coming from miles away. Gabriel almost reached out. Almost took the life beyond the door. Almost spared Sam this burden, no matter what the boy’s protests.

All traces of vacillation fled the lean muscles of Sam’s body. Resolve closed his large hand around the knob and opened the door.

Shadow cast the room. It mattered little; Sam had lived half his life in the dark places of the world. Gabriel stood at the threshold, watching, committing to irreversible, unalterable memory the result of his cowardice.

It was easy to forget, in the midst of darkness and destiny, that John Winchester had been anything beyond a hunter. To think that battling the creatures of the night realms was all he’d taught his sons. But Sam’s steps were more than the careful paces of a practiced hunter. They were the lithe, covert advances of a United States Marine. John Winchester had served with some of the best-trained, fiercest soldiers in the modern world. He had passed those skills on to his sons, honoring his teachers and preparing them for this fight with all the tools he had to offer.

Sam crossed to his brother’s bedside with a predator’s feral grace, moonlight catching his face, casting his features in an unearthly glow. Gabriel fought down a shiver as Fate painted him a chilling reminder of all that Sam was. All he had been built and bred and brought up to be.

And yet the archangel could not, would not turn away.

Gabriel made himself watch as Sam reached down, catching Dean’s left wrist in his right hand. Dean never stirred, bound in peaceful dreams by Gabriel’s magic. His right knee bent into the mattress, and Sam slid to straddle his brother’s hips as easily as a lover’s, expression a pale mask. He bent, for a long moment, touching his forehead to Dean’s, eyes closed as he blotted out all but the warmth of his brother’s presence, the soft drum of Dean’s heartbeat and the quiet rhythm of Dean’s breath through parted lips.

The tableau wrenched at Gabriel’s heart. _Father… Forgive him…_

Smooth as a striking snake, Sam sat up, right hand releasing Dean’s wrist to clasp his chin and jaw. His left slid beneath Dean’s head, lifting and almost cradling the skull. Between one breath and the next, the full weight of Sam’s upper musculature shifted in a single fluid motion.

The sharp splinter of delicate bone snapping was obscenely loud in the quiet of the night.

Gabriel felt the spark snuff out. Heard Dean’s soul cry out as it fell from his now-lifeless body into the endless chasm that awaited it. A part of his grace flared, struggled, desperate to let wings unfurl and drop into a death spiral after the fallen mortal, to stop the madness before it could start. To save a human he felt genuine affection and respect for from a Fate, however short-lived, he didn’t deserve.

Sam wasn’t moving. Unseeing eyes stared at the back of his left hand, still cradling the back of Dean’s skull. Dean’s neck had broken clean, the delicate spinal cord snapped like frayed thread. The torsion Sam had used had turned Dean’s head one-hundred-eighty degrees, still framed in his large hands. Every ounce of strength, every muscle and sinew, had been brought to bear.

Slow, as if emerging from a fugue, Sam’s hands reversed the motion. Dean’s head was turned carefully back into a normal position. Gabriel watched Sam slip his left hand back from beneath Dean’s skull. The right thumb released its brace across Dean’s jaw, the fingers slipping up to smooth a tuft of mussed hair back into place.

Before Gabriel could do so much as call out Sam’s name, the younger Winchester fell across his brother, arms wrapping around the limp, doll-like body, weeping uncontrollably as the last traces of warmth seeped from Dean Winchester’s corpse.


	6. The Mask I Have Outworn – Part Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see Chapter One for warnings, disclaimers and notes.

~ooooOOOoooo~

 

Sam was inconsolable. Destroyed. Necessary as it had been, the loss and guilt were tearing him apart, and nothing he’d learned from Gabriel made the immediate grief easier to bear. But Dean couldn’t be left unattended. And there were things to see to. Gabriel couldn’t sit back and do nothing, waiting for Sam to be able to function again.

Being an archangel and the pagan demigod meant rarely if ever needing to do things the ‘human’ way. He had the power to destroy cities with a thought, to produce anything he could ever want or need from thin air, to create perfect vehicles for divine retribution against those who had transgressed Heaven’s laws.

But this death was on him as much as Sam. A death that reminded him all too sharply of another human he’d loved that had lost his life to the Father’s plan. Given the last true measure of devotion to the “greater good”.

He cheated to get the supplies, of course. It wasn’t like he kept such things on hand. But as much as Gabriel could, he did by hand, honoring the bravery of the dead.

Gently manipulating limbs now cold and uncooperative. Washing the body clean in slow methodical strokes of cloth and warm water and unscented soap. Cleansing away all stains, all impurities. Anointing him with oils and burnt sage, marking Dean with the last rites befitting a warrior against the Dark.

He cheated a little with getting Dean into clean clothes and wrapping his body, too; it was easier if the body was suspended in midair. Black for protection. Purple for his Father, the Infinite. Blue, his own shade of sapphires at midnight. Green for Raphael, to speed the healing Dean would need later. Red for Michael, because even after everything, he wanted to believe that Michael would look after his Vessel. Lastly, white: for purity and rebirth. Between each layer of pristine linen, he laid in frankincense and myrrh, holy herbs and talismans of protection. Every layer soaked in honey, to preserve the flesh until Dean was restored to it.

Getting the wrapped body outside by himself was no picnic, but Gabriel managed without stumbling or bashing Dean about. He wasn’t happy about burying Dean outside the shield wall, but it couldn’t be helped: no angel could enter his haven unless he allowed it. He wasn’t about to disable half his wards for who-knew-how-long, not with demons still keeping watch. He could protect the grave. After it was dug, of course.

With all of his powers, he could easily have translocated Dean’s corpse into a bubble of air within the ground. With a snap of his fingers, he could have removed the volume of dirt required to create the grave for Dean. But he didn’t want to use his grace. He had no right to escape any part of this.

So, he dug a grave.

Gabriel let himself feel every flex and extension of his muscles, the rub and burn of the wooden-handled shovel against his palms. It didn’t have to be a deep hole, but it was still long, heavy work making a place in the ground to house Dean’s body until his resurrection. It had been far easier with Christ; Joseph had only been too happy to volunteer his tomb, and others had been there to help with the work of preparing the body. But Gabriel wore Dean’s death like a stain on his heart. The only shortcuts he was allowing himself to take were to ensure that he could prepare Dean’s body without damaging it.

Besides, Sam had already done this once, alone, because of the little exercise he put Sam and Dean through in Florida to try and make Sam see the bigger picture without committing himself against his brothers. Gabriel couldn’t ask Sam to do this again just to ease his way.

“Gabriel?”

Startled, turning, the archangel saw Sam standing a few feet from Dean’s wrapped corpse. The human looked haggard, fragile even as he surveyed the scene before him. “Sam, go back inside. The trees have eyes and we’re not shielded here.”

An expression Gabriel could only describe as pure stubborn settled over Sam’s face. Without a word, he dropped into a crouch and slid his arms beneath his brother’s body, lifting it as easily as a child.

Turning away from the sight, Gabriel dug out the last foot of earth from the shallow grave, then stepped clear. It was all he could do to watch as Sam came forward, laying his brother into the ground, tears streaming in unbroken rivers from the hunter’s hazel eyes.

They filled the hole in silence, grave earth smearing their hands. Sam said nothing; Gabriel didn’t blame him. Even for the ArchHerald of God, there were no words for this moment. When the ground was smooth and whole again, Gabriel stayed on his knees. It had been a long time… so very long… but if anyone deserved it…

A cube of chalk; a grain of salt. The grave aligned east to west, with Dean’s head pointed towards the rising sun. On his knees, grief threatening to choke him for the first time in an age, Gabriel carefully laid the crystals into the earth over Dean’s heart. Holding his hand above them, eyes closed, Gabriel opened his grace.

Sam watched, entranced, tears drying on his cheeks as the crystals grew, fused, twined and spun into a filament, wrought into a sigil Sam recognized all too well.

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/ladyeternal/pic/0000fr5c/)

Gabriel’s name.

It swelled, spreading across Dean’s grave, spidery tendrils of crystal spinning out and sinking into the ground beneath. By the time Gabriel removed his hand, the crystal strands were smooth and opaque as milk glass, immovable as the mountains on the horizon.

“They’ll know you’re alive,” Sam found himself saying, unsure why it bothered him enough to say so. “When they bring Dean back and see it.”

“They’d know soon enough anyway,” Gabriel replied. He felt hollowed out, by grief and guilt and the inescapable certainty that this would all come to nothing or worse. “Might as well go for broke.”

“Why are you doing this?” Sam focused on the archangel for the first time since they’d left the storm cellar, needing to understand. Needing to reconcile the Trickster godling that had been willing to barter a day of sex for Dean’s life with an archangel who was risking his very existence to help he and Dean avoid a fate they’d had no idea was coming.

A long moment of silence, and then Gabriel met his gaze. “Because I don’t want either of my brothers to die.”

So much unsaid, and yet so much encompassed in such simple words. Sam held those amber eyes for long uncounted minutes, and then stood and walked back into the enclave created by the shield wall. Gabriel let him go, keeping silent vigil over Dean’s grave until the afternoon sun gave way to twilight, his grace flickering warnings at the demons watching him that it was worth their lives to do more. One crystal tear of grief and regret slid free, and then he sighed and withdrew, joining Sam within the safety of his haven.

* * *

It was hard not to gravitate towards Sam in the following days. Gabriel wanted to be close to him, comfort him, remind Sam that he wasn’t alone. But there was ten feet of personal space around the hunter right now, and there were far too many emotions tangled up in it for Gabriel to risk it. He wanted to let Sam calm down, process everything. The human needed time to grieve, and at least here it would be safe for him to do so.

Except great plans, whether of mice or men or archangels, tended to tumble to the wayside whenever Sam Winchester was involved. Gabriel was abruptly reminded of that when he found Sam in the room Dean had chosen, packing his brother’s belongings into a duffel bag. “What are you doing?”

“I can’t stay here anymore,” Sam replied, his tone clipped and his back resolutely turned to the archangel. “I can’t stay here doing nothing, just sitting on my ass waiting for Dean to get brought back.”

“Well, you’re definitely not leaving,” Gabriel protested. “We have no idea how long it will take for the seraphim to rescue Dean, and he’s not gonna want to see anyone but you when he wakes up.”

“Then you can wait here for him and fly me back when it’s done.” Sam refused to even look at Gabriel, zipping the bag closed and striding to the door. If a lesser being had been standing in his path, he would have walked right over them. As it was, Gabriel’s tiny form filled the doorway, obdurate as stone. Sam ran into him and was forced to step back, irrationally angry that not even a hair on Gabriel’s head was moved by the impact. “Get out of my way,” he snapped.

“Never gonna happen, kid.” Gabriel looked deceptively casual, hands clasped behind his back. “I made a promise to your brother.”

“Too bad.” Sam started towards him again, stopping when the archangel refused to move. “You can’t keep me here against my will, Gabriel. I don’t care what kind of powers you have.”

“I can and will keep you from doing something irreversibly stupid.” Gabriel tried to keep his temper in check, to remember that Sam was angry and grieving and that smiting the kid into seeing sense wouldn’t help matters. “You go out on your own and we both know what’ll happen, Sam.”

“You’re not my brother!” Sam shot back. “You’re not family or a hunter. You’re not even human. And having screwed me a few times doesn’t give you the right to keep me from picking between paper and plastic! Much less from walking out of this house. Now move before I do it for you.”

One eyebrow quirked. Gabriel planted his feet a little more firmly, crossing his arms over his torso. “Take your best shot, gorgeous.”

A cracked knuckle and jammed ankle later, Sam was falling back, the duffel containing Dean’s belongings dropping from his shoulder with a soft thump and rustle while the younger hunter swore under his breath, obviously trying to re-strategize.

Hating every moment of this, knowing it had been inevitable, Gabriel stepped close, reaching out to take Sam’s hand and heal the hairline fracture. “Sam…”

His fingers closed and Sam reacted. Blind, on instinct, a blast of despair and rage and grief and self-loathing erupted as his arm came up to fling Gabriel’s touch away. When the blur cleared, Gabriel had been slammed into the wall across the room and had slithered to the floor in a limp heap of uncoordinated limbs.

Sam stared in horror as amber gold eyes rolled, unfocused, for the space of a dozen thunderous heartbeats. “Gabriel?” Sam scrambled around Dean’s bag, anger and betrayal forgotten as he rushed to the crumpled archangel. “Oh, God; Gabriel, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-”

“ ‘S okay, gorgeous.” The endearment was faintly slurred, and then Gabriel was blinking back into focus, a vaguely self-mocking slant to his rueful smile. “That was the psychic equivalent of a swift kick in the nuts… which is about what I deserve, all things considered.”

“I just…” Sam faltered, fear for the angel bleeding away and draining his more volatile emotions with it.

“It’s okay, Sam.” Gabriel shifted into a more balanced position, gathering himself. He hadn’t expected Sam’s powers to manifest, although he should have. Humans always tended to manifest talents during periods of high emotional turbulence if they didn’t already have them under control. It was a sharp reminder that there was more to do while they waited for Dean’s resurrection than just avoid talking about what had happened between them.

“Gabriel, I’m sorry.” Sam felt like his entire body had been battered and bruised, exhaustion and depression seeping into the spaces now emptied of anger-fueled adrenaline.

Unable to stop himself, Gabriel reached out, sliding gentle fingers over Sam’s cheek, brushing up into Sam’s hair. “I know. Sam, it’s nothing you should apologize for. You’re pissed at the world and I helped make you that way. I don’t expect to be forgiven and I’m not asking for anything more than you let me keep my promise to your brother. Let me keep you safe, Sam.”

Stricken, aching, Sam pulled away from the touch and stood up. Gabriel pushed to his feet, not quite following but definitely not giving Sam a clear path to run. “You don’t have to do this. I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen. But that doesn’t mean you should have to.” He saw the war on Sam’s face and decided to play dirty. “It was the last thing Dean asked of me, Sam,” he lied, knowing there was no point in telling Sam what Dean’s last request had _really_ been. “You really want me to have to break that kind of promise? I know you pretty much hate me-”

“You didn’t have to take my deal!” Sam snarled, the question that had plagued him for weeks finally breaking free. “You knew who we were the moment you saw us; you could have told us who you were, what we were facing! You didn’t have to let it get this bad, and you didn’t have to take that offer I made. Even then, you could have just told me what was happening. You didn’t have to make me…”

Gabriel was quiet for a long moment, his mind filling in his own ending for that last sentence. He was reasonably certain the words Sam refused to say weren’t the ones he might have wished to hear. “No, I didn’t. You’re absolutely right. I gave up being an archangel a long time ago, Sam. And I’ve been wearing the mask of a Norse God long enough to have gotten lost somewhere behind it. You two wandering onto that campus in Ohio was an unpleasant and unwanted reminder of who I am, what I was hiding from. I was done, Sam. Do you understand what I’m saying? I was _done_ with all of it. Until you.”

Something in Gabriel’s voice made Sam’s heart crack, unwontedly bringing up everything he’d felt, every silent, unspoken affinity he’d felt for the Trickster. “Why did you take the offer I made, Gabriel?” he asked again. “Just… tell me the truth.”

Though he was almost certain the truth would make matters worse, Gabriel did as Sam asked. “Because I was fool enough to think that I could spend a day in your arms… the first day I haven’t been alone in fifteen centuries… and not be moved.”

Sam went still. Only dark hazel eyes betrayed anything, muddled by too many emotions to count. Gabriel wanted to erase everything he saw there, to watch those eyes clear and brighten to sherry-gold in a nest built for passion and comfort. “You’re angry. You’re hurting. You have a right to be and I’ll be the first to agree. But they’re counting on the kind of lone wolf run you went on hunting me those last six months, Sam. They’re banking on that reaction from you to get Lucifer out of the Cage.

“So hate me as much as you want; I knew the moment I decided to tell you both the truth that you’d hate me for not spending that day hurting you as much as you would have if I’d just taken you without giving a damn about your pleasure and then letting you go without saying a word. If you really want to leave, we’ll leave together; I can make sure we’ll know when Dean is brought back. But don’t shut me out and run. It’s what they want you to do.”

Great shoulders slumped in defeat. Sam nodded once, refusing to speak for fear of what he might say.

This time, when he made to leave the room, Gabriel didn’t stop him; instead walked to the center of the room and picked up Dean’s duffel bag, hefting in his hand the weight of a life spent fighting creatures of darkness. The only sound in the house was that of Sam’s bedroom door closing, and a muffled sob just beyond.

* * *

Checking on him was a stupid idea. It was really just asking for trouble and Gabriel knew it. But spending months, possibly a year or more even, in the company of a human suddenly bereft of everything that had ever anchored him in this life would be difficult enough without letting things fester between them. And Gabriel wasn’t about to let Sam accuse him later of not caring what he was going through. He already had enough sins for which to atone without adding that one.

“Sam?” Gabriel opened the door cautiously, having gotten no answer to his knocks. “You may not want to right now, but you need to eat, gorgeous.” Stepping completely inside, Gabriel scanned for signs of the human. His belongings were scattered neatly, the computer plugged in and humming quietly on the bureau. Sam hadn’t run while Gabriel’s back was turned. So where was he? “Sam?”

The bathroom door opened. Sam emerged, a large towel wrapped around his hips, another in his hands, obviously having been used to dry his hair. Droplets of moisture still clung to the tawny skin covering yards of corded muscle; it was fairly obvious that Sam had just taken a bath or shower. There was an open question on his face, as if he was only mildly curious about why the archangel was looking for him.

Gabriel’s mouth went dry. He covered the way it fell open in hunger by plucking a grape from the tray of fresh fruit and hot tea he’d brought with him and popping it into the sudden space between his lips. “Um… food. You should eat.”

“Right. Thanks.” Sam looked away, fighting a blush and reaching for his bag. There was no reason he couldn’t just drop the towel and dress; it wasn’t as though Loki hadn’t seen every inch of him already… seen and more.

 _Gabriel_ , he reminded himself sharply. _Not Loki… Gabriel. That name was a lie. Everything that happened that day was a lie._

Watching the sharp jerk of Sam’s movements as he yanked the duffel close, Gabriel let out a tiny sigh and set the tray down on the bureau beside the computer. All the glory currently on display was no longer on offer, and he needed to remember that it wouldn’t have been even if he hadn’t given Sam every reason to hate his immortal guts. “Since we’re gonna be stuck with each other for a while,” he offered quietly, “there’s something you should think about.”

“What’s that?” Sam flickered a glance at the archangel, who was nervously plucking a strawberry from the tray. He remembered the scent of strawberries… the taste of them on those soft lips. It was an itch under his skin, remembrance of those lips on him, every inch of him, learning him in ways not even Jess had…

“Your powers.” Gabriel restrained himself from eating more of what he’d brought for Sam, instead snapping a box of dark chocolate truffles into existence beside the tray of fruit and snagging one of them instead. Letting it melt on his tongue almost blotted out the memory of Sam’s skin beneath his lips. “They’re angelic, when all is said and done.”

Sam’s brow furrowed as he pulled on a shirt, fastening a few central buttons and letting it hang low past his hips. It obscured enough that he felt comfortable removing the towel so that he could pull on a pair of boxers. “Azazel was a demon when he bled into my mouth, Gabriel. He wasn’t an angel anymore.”

“The core of any demon is still what it once was, Sam.” Gabriel downed another truffle, feeling some of his equilibrium return. “Azazel was an angel… cherubim, though not one of mine. When you get right down to it, your powers come from the same source as mine… which means I can teach you to access it.”

Sam went still, the boxers dangling from nearly nerveless fingers. He slowly turned to stare at Gabriel, hazel eyes wide. “You… what?” Gabriel gave him a high-browed glance that said plainly he knew Sam had heard him correctly. “But they’re… I mean, the others, when they embraced their power… they all went dark side. Except Andy, but he never really wanted more than what little he’d always been able to use… but still-”

“Power’s like a gun, kiddo: by itself, it isn’t good or evil.” Gabriel smiled a little, starting to hope that this would give Sam a reason not to hate him quite so much. “And at your core, you’re definitely not dark. I can help you figure out how to use what you’ve got locked up in there without needing to go through negative emotions to fire ‘em up.”

The thought shook Sam deep, appealing to him on a fundamental level. “Why?”

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “You always ask that question; can’t you just be-?”

In a heartbeat, Sam was across the room, huge hands gripping Gabriel’s arms and shaking him, interrupting the sarcastic non-answer. The towel was long gone, but Sam was too caught up to care at the moment. “Just answer me, damn it! Why?”

“Because you got under my skin!” Gabriel shouted back. He didn’t even register the way Sam’s eyes went wide in surprise, too tangled up in his own mess to see it. “You shouldn’t have been able to; _goddesses_ have tried and failed to get as close as you did in that one damn day, Sam. You clambered right through every one of the defenses I’ve spent centuries putting up; you and your stupid shampoo-commercial hair and how you didn’t even hesitate to offer yourself up on a platter without having the first clue what would happen to you and not much caring, either. It’s been _eons_ since my brothers felt that way about each other, let alone any of the rest of us caught in the crossfire-”

“I’m not your brother,” Sam returned, his voice nearly a whisper in comparison. “Neither of them.”

“I know that.” Gabriel gazed up at him, feeling somehow tiny in the huge, warm grip of Sam’s hands. “I know _exactly_ who and what you are, Sam Winchester… and I should have known better than to take what you offered. But you had me pegged, and you’re so damnably gorgeous… inside and out. By the time I realized taking your deal was screwing myself out of a chance at something real…” He shrugged, trying to put his emotions back into check. “Too little, too late.”

The words sank in slowly, sending a cascade through Sam, reframing everything. Gabriel… the archangel… the Trickster… Loki… _A rose by any other name,_ he couldn’t help thinking. If Dean had been privy to the thought, Sam would’ve found tampons in his duffel bag for a month.

It didn’t stop Sam’s mouth from driving forward, hands pulling Gabriel’s body into his own as he caught the Trickster’s lips. Gabriel let out a gasp in surprise and Sam used the leverage, his tongue dipping inside and catching the aftertaste of chocolate and hazelnut on Gabriel’s.

“This is a bad idea, Sam,” Gabriel managed between kisses. His hands weren’t listening to his own admonition, sliding up into Sam’s hair and gripping tight, his groin firing delicious sparks through his blood as Sam’s thigh slid between his.

“Don’t care,” Sam muttered back. He nipped at Gabriel’s lower lip and Gabriel let out a whine, twisting closer, almost rutting against Sam’s thigh. “Don’t want to be alone anymore.”

A choked sob, and then Gabriel’s forehead was pressed to Sam’s, third eye to third eye, his hands still fisting against Sam’s scalp as Sam hoisted him until his legs could wrap around that tree trunk of a waist and lock behind perfectly tapered hips. “Me neither.”

Sam wasn’t sure at what point during their blind stumble back to the bed Gabriel snapped their clothing away. He wasn’t paying much attention, and it didn’t really matter. What mattered was the way Gabriel felt pressed against him, skin to skin, the way it was exactly, beautifully, blessedly the same and when Gabriel’s fingertips skimmed his sides almost gratefully it was all Sam could do not to laugh for the simple joy of it. He leaned up, fingers lacing into sunset hair and reveling that the silken feel was still the same… the reality of this beautiful creature, be he godling or angel, hadn’t changed…

“Tell me it wasn’t a lie,” Sam pleaded, arching up into the first brushes of Gabriel’s lips over his collarbone. “Tell me it wasn’t all just a lie, what happened back there…”

Shifting, Gabriel gazed down at the glory of the naked man beneath him, wondering at the way this mortal child never ceased finding ways to surprise him. “The only thing I lied about that day was my name, Sam.”

And then Sam’s lips were on his, on his and refusing to let go, devouring him and he was devouring Sam right back, and Sam was hard and aching against him and those long long legs were parting naturally beneath him, those splendidly cut hips welcoming his weight as if it had always belonged there against the cradle of them…

“Gabriel…” It was a sound on Sam’s lips that nearly drove the archangel to tears. A sound he hadn’t even allowed his chimeric lovers to utter, for fear of discovery. It was a plea on Sam’s lips, a prayer that he didn’t care about anyone hearing beyond himself, a litany of need that sank into every pore and inflamed him more than any of Sam’s exquisitely heated caresses. “Gabriel… Gabriel…”

Before, he’d avoided kissing Sam’s mouth because it would have conveyed an intimacy inappropriate for the moment. Now, the archangel did so because he wanted that beautiful voice unencumbered, bringing his grace to bear in every touch and drawing out cry after gasping cry, all framed as his name, a name he’d forgotten even wanting until Sam was in his arms.

Muscles flared in remembrance at his first slick touch, relaxing and welcoming rather than constricting defensively. Gabriel groaned Sam’s name against the taut skin of his abdomen, delivering a stinging love bite as Sam’s hips pushed against his fingers, seeking more, his body achingly hollow and needing to feel more than the archangel’s touch. And Gabriel gave him more, tendrils of grace winding out through his fingertips and wreaking havoc on Sam’s already riotous pheromones, making him thrash and writhe, Gabriel’s name a broken string of pleading syllables in the long column of Sam’s throat.

When Gabriel finally, finally slid deep into the welcoming heat of Sam’s body, Sam wrapped around him with arms and legs, capturing his soft mauve lips in a desperate kiss. Gabriel kissed him back, lost himself in it, slid his hands beneath Sam’s back and cradled him. Sam’s hips rolled against his, opening and inviting, pulling Gabriel just that fraction deeper.

Thought vanished in a sea of need. All that mattered was the pushpullslipdrag of Sam’s body around his and Sam chanting his name in a voice of raw passion, three syllables that at once were begging pleading demanding more harder deeper please please please…

The human beneath him exploded in release, driven to orgasm by nothing more than an onslaught of grace and pounding hammer strokes against his prostate. Short-cropped nails dug hard into the muscles that formed the base for his wings, clawing in ecstasy, and Gabriel lost it, surrendering to a white-hot sear that sundered him from himself, Sam’s name a soundless shout as the world dissolved around him.

* * *

When Sam woke, Gabriel was still there. The archangel was tangled with him, idly stroking his chest, head pillowed against the hollow of Sam’s shoulder. Automatically, Sam’s longer arms wrapped around him, needing the physical illusion that he could keep Gabriel there merely by holding on tightly enough. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Gabriel smiled a bit sheepishly. “Your tea got cold.”

Sam laughed. “Can’t you mojo it hot again? Or did I wear you out?” One tawny eyebrow quirked, and Gabriel’s fingers snapped. Steam once again curled off the tea in the mugs sitting atop the tray now balanced in mid-air by nothing more than Gabriel’s will. It drew another chuckle from the human. “Okay; yeah. You’re awesome. Duly noted.”

Reaching up, Gabriel snagged a strawberry and slipped it into Sam’s mouth. “You’d better keep that one firmly fixed in your mind, Sammy. It’s gonna get tedious if I’m having to remind you of it all the time.”

One of Sam’s dark brows lifted in a perfect imitation of Gabriel’s gesture. “Really? Only the second turn you’ve had in bed with me and you’re foreseeing tedium? Not exactly enticing me to prove you wrong, man.”

The archangel said nothing. He simply reached up, fetching another strawberry and dipping it into a pot of warm chocolate sauce that hadn’t been there a moment ago. Without a single comment, he trailed the confection up Sam’s thigh, then bent and slowly licked the sensitive skin clean. Sam let out a gasp. The archangel repeated the pattern with his other thigh, this time brushing the most fleeting of kisses over the tip of Sam’s suddenly renewed arousal.

Nimble fingers popped the berry into his own mouth, then reached up and dipped another, even juicier piece of fruit. His devilish smile was incandescent, golden eyes glittering tenderness. “Good of you to make it interesting, gorgeous. You know I can’t turn down a challenge.”

Mischief turned hazel eyes sherry gold, and then Sam was leaning up, capturing Gabriel’s wrist in his larger grip. Dimples popped as those pale pink lips pulled into a cunning smile, and then parted to let Sam’s tongue slide out and curl around the chocolate-dipped pear wedge, drawing it from the archangel’s fingers and into the hunter’s mouth so suggestively that Gabriel nearly groaned aloud. “I know.”


	7. The Mask I Have Outworn – Part Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see Chapter One for warnings, disclaimers and notes.

~ooooOOOoooo~

 

_**Four Months Later…** _

_He was the soul that wouldn’t be consumed. Alastair’s finest pupil. Human enough to be glorious in his depravity, dark enough to be beyond the reach of his victim’s pleas. And still, buried beneath the dark, buried so deep that not even Alastair could strip away enough to reach it, there was a spark. Tiny, but powerful._

_Someone had given Dean Winchester a spark of hope. And when he raped and carved, when he rent apart quivering flesh and drank the blood of the damned, when he bathed in their tears and built cathedrals of their despairing screams…_

_When he inspired the very Darkness itself, Hell could feel that spark **burn**._

_It was thus that Castiel, battle-weary and stained in the blood of countless demons that had attempted to stop him, found the Righteous Man._

_Bare-chested, bearing scars beyond counting, Dean Winchester was slowly peeling the skin from a freshly-acquired soul: a man of middling years who had traded his soul for monetary gain, who had never known real pain in the whole of his life. He was babbling, shrieking, terrified._

_“Aw, what?” Dean’s voice was singsong, nearly childlike. “You didn’t think it’d be like this? Did you think at all before you gave it away?” The knife slid beneath another scored square of flesh, slowly shearing it from muscle. “I did. Gave it up like it meant something. You… you whored your soul away for money. What’d you think we’d do to you?” A smile, cruel and gleaming, more terrible than any blade. “Gonna have fun with you… keep you for years… how long before you crack, I wonder? Slut like you, won’t be long before you’re no fun anymore.”_

_“Dean.” A bell amidst nails on slate. Pure and crystalline, shimmering and echoing off chains and basalt and flames perpetual._

_Viridian eyes, flickering dark and deadly, rose to meet his own. Hope flared from its tiny niche, struggling against the Dark still intent on smothering it. “Hello, angel.”_

_“Dean.” Castiel stepped forward, dagger still in his hand, sword sheathed. “You must come with me. We must leave this place now.”_

_Darkness swirled protectively, a cloak settling across Dean’s broad shoulders. Castiel could see the way it tried to engulf him, to put the Righteous Man beyond the reach of redemption. It wanted him: wanted this beautiful man as a jewel for its crown. And through him, the Boy King it had been denied._

_“Dean…” Another step. Slow, careful not to walk into a trap. “Come away.”_

_“You think we’ll get outta here alive?” Dean’s voice was edged, cold; the Dark permeated him, fighting the spark that refused to die. “You think **you** will, angel?”_

_“It is over, Dean.” Closing the distance. Angels were fighting, trying to reach them, to help him. They had no idea…_

_“He was wrong when he said I’d surprise you.” Hand deceptively loose on the hilt of the blade, still dripping with the blood of the victim on the rack behind Dean. “I don’t surprise you at all, do I, angel?”_

_“You are not yet a demon, Dean,” Castiel urged. “There is still time. But we must leave here now, before it’s too late.”_

_Hope flared brighter at the words. Black engulfed Dean in the next instant, flaring and snarling, living smoke that seethed with rage and anguish and hatred. **“DEAN WINCHESTER IS LOST TO YOU, YHWH’S CHILD! HE BELONGS TO US NOW.”**_

_Castiel stood his ground, dagger point low, wings unfurled in protective arches. “You do not yet possess him. You have not turned him from himself.” A snarl of unrestrained fury. Castiel could no longer see him, the Righteous Man obscured by sulphurous black. “I am here, Dean,” he urged, voice pitched to echo from every surface. “I have not abandoned you. It does not own you; not yet.”_

_No answer. No glow from the spark. Only the ROAR of Chaos; the roiling, relentless scream of the Dark. “Come on, Dean.” An almost-smirk, knowing and cunning, twisted those timeless features. “Surprise me.”_

_An eruption. A feral howl. Dean exploded forward, athame raised in a high arc to strike…_

_In an instant, Castiel’s dagger caught the blade, stopping its descent. Dean’s eyes widened as Castiel’s free hand followed the defensive sweep of his dagger, catching the human’s wrist in his grip._

_Light bled from the touch, burning into Dean’s arm. Lapis eyes never left viridian as the spark of hope swelled, reaching out and catching the Healing Fire of God, burning away the taint of Hell, the stain of Darkness._

_A shriek of thwarted rage shook Hell to its foundations as the claim Chaos had made on the Righteous Man was stripped away, leaving the near-demon a completely human soul once more._

_Eyes widened as Dean’s weight slumped in Castiel’s grip, his fingers numbly releasing the athame he’d wielded so expertly only moments ago. “You… you’re…”_

_“It will be all right,” Castiel assured him softly. “We must leave this place.”_

_Tears gathered, evaporating almost as quickly as they formed in the searing heat. Dean nodded, aching everywhere, his knees near to giving way under the weight of what he’d endured and what he’d done both. “I…”_

_Dagger sheathed, Castiel carefully gathered the human into his arms. “You are absolved of this place, Dean Winchester. Let us go.”_

_Trusting as a child, Dean allowed himself to be curled into that powerful, comforting embrace. Music filled his ears as he did, seeming to shimmer from the angel’s entire form, drowning out the cries of the soul on the rack and the howling of the demons surrounding them. Wings stretched, flexed, launching them from the ground and catching the currents of heat that whorled around them._

_Carrying them out of Hell._

_Closing his eyes, Dean sank into the safety of the embrace that carried him away from the nightmare of the last forty years. The angels hadn’t just left him there. He hadn’t become a demon._

_He sensed the angel’s surprise as they rose to Earth, their flight slowing near what must be Dean’s grave. Dean couldn’t remember why he should be. But then the seraph was urging Dean back towards his body, out of that warm, safe embrace, and Dean panicked. “No. No, please; I can’t.”_

_“You must,” Castiel replied gently. “You have much left to do, Dean Winchester.”_

_“I don’t want to,” Dean protested, clinging with all his strength to the angel’s form. “Sammy’s safe, and the rest… please, I can’t. Let them find someone else. Anyone else. I can’t do what they want; please.”_

_If Castiel was surprised by what he found at Dean’s gravesite, the pleas of the soul in his arms truly startled him. “You won’t be alone, little one. I will help you. But you must go back.”_

_Dean stared up at him, refusing to let go, viridian eyes reflecting broken pleas and nameless fears. “At least tell me your name.”_

_A smile, gentle and comforting, suffused with the Love he’d sworn to his Father to feel for his human cousins. “Castiel, little one. It means ‘My sanctuary is God’.”_

_Slow, like an animal approaching a human with a sugar cube, Dean leaned close and pressed his lips to the angel’s. A kiss of gratitude. A request for reassurance. Taken by surprise yet again, Castiel returned it, right hand curled around Dean’s left shoulder, left hand encircling Dean’s elbow, paused in the act of pressing the human soul back into its well-preserved body._

_Except that spark Dean still carried flared to life, igniting between them. Castiel’s entire being responded, Love and Safety and the faintest trace of Possessiveness uncoiling within him, attempting to tangle around the human soul that yearned to remain with him, that feared separation from the angel that had claimed him from Chaos’ grip._

_He felt the bond begin to form, the mark searing itself into Dean’s soul. His Orders rang in his grace and Castiel broke the embrace with a gasp, staring at the human in his arms. Dean gazed back at him, wide-eyed, uncertain. “No, Dean… you must go back. I will find you soon.”_

_Before Dean could protest again, the Light that filled his vision was swarmed under, and he was falling, falling, guided but falling back to himself, rainbow lights flashing by him in the soundless rushing flight…_

_*Castiel…*_

* * *

The sonic boom echoed off the shield wall, vibrating through the entire building and waking both of them. Sam was up almost as fast as Gabriel, pulling on pants as quickly as he could. “Is it…?”

“Yes.” Gabriel blinked out, exiting his haven and landing just beyond the wards with a faint flutter of wings. Every tree within 100 feet of Dean’s grave had been smashed to the ground, knocked flat like Lincoln Logs toppled by a child’s careless hand. Without pausing to care if the angel that had resurrected Dean was still nearby, Gabriel snapped his fingers.

Dean’s wrapped body appeared at his feet, the very-much-alive human within now struggling to get loose of the linen binding him from head to toe. Gabriel dropped to his knees, touching grace-warm hands to Dean’s chest and forehead, suffusing calm through the resurrected hunter and working to dispel his automatic panic. “Easy, Deano… I got you.”

Sam was skidding to the ground moments later, a knife in his hands poised to cut his brother free. “Dean… Dean, gimme a second. I don’t want to cut you, man.”

Dean’s breath was hitching, agitated, like an animal stressed nearly beyond reason. Gabriel helped Sam pull the linen away from Dean’s side so he could make a slit. Slicing the length of it was slow work; the wrapping had been tight for a reason and Dean was just barely calmed by Gabriel’s grace. Sam’s eyes seemed to burn as they finally cut enough to peel the layers of Dean’s death shroud away, the linen stiff with crystallized honey and still redolent from the oils and herbs used to prepare him for burial.

The shroud had barely come away from Dean’s face before Dean was scrambling free of it, before Sam was catching hold of him for fear that Dean would bolt like a frightened animal. Gabriel held himself back, sensing more than anything that Dean needed Sam right now, needed to see that the center of his world was still here waiting for him.

Sam’s huge, gentle hands caught Dean by the arms, his throat choking closed from tears of relief. His brother’s name was a low, broken plea on Sam’s lips for Dean to recognize him, for Dean to be all right, to be himself. There was a part of Sam that had honestly wondered if he would ever truly see his brother alive again, or, if Dean would still be the brother that had always been the foundation of Sam’s entire life when they were reunited. “Dean… you’re okay. You’re back.”

Huge, terrified viridian eyes caught, focused, held hazel overflowing with tears. One shaky hand lifted, almost in wonder, fingertips brushing through the saline rivers. “Sammy?” Dean’s voice was rough from disuse, tremulous and small in a way neither human nor archangel had ever heard before. “You okay?”

The sound that left Sam was a mangled bark somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “Yeah… I’m okay, Dean. Let’s get you inside… get you cleaned up.”

A nod, barely more than a jerk of Dean’s head, as if he wasn’t sure it would stay on his shoulders if he moved it too much. Sam’s heart clutched at the reminder, even if he was reasonably sure Dean had no idea how exactly he’d died. Gabriel moved his hand, shifting slightly in preparation to snap them inside. Dean turned unsteadily, his eyes dilating from vertigo. “No… no. Walk. I… wanna walk.”

“No problem.” Gabriel’s voice was pitched low, quietly understanding. He scrambled to Dean’s left while Sam slid right, each catching one of Dean’s arms around them.

“On three, Dean.” Sam’s hand stretched for enough to brush Gabriel’s back. Gabriel noted with a soft thrill of joy that Sam’s fingers flexed and reveled at even the mild contact, rather than shying away as they might have a few months ago. “One… two… three…”

It was a close thing, getting Dean to his feet without losing their grip on him. Dean’s limbs were uncoordinated and shaky as he tried to stand on his own. “Just ‘cause you’re alive doesn’t mean you can kick yet, big boy,” Gabriel admonished, a lightly amused tone affected more for Dean’s benefit than out of genuine mirth at the elder Winchester’s mild flailing. “Your nervous system’s still rebooting; it’ll take a bit for everything to work the way it’s supposed to.”

Dean’s eyes closed; Sam could see the way his brother wanted to deny it, to rebel at the notion that he wasn’t ready and able to fight down an entire nest of vampires from the moment of his resurrection. “Dean…” Another soft plea, this time for patience. “It’ll be okay, man… remember how sick I got? That winter when I was sixteen?”

A chuckle rolled in Dean’s throat, his head turning vaguely towards Gabriel. “Black dog hunt… bronchitis, real bad… wanted to… help Dad ‘nyway. Found ‘im halfway to the door… passed out face first an’ drooling on the rug… when we got back.” Sam blushed faintly. Gabriel laughed at the image. A shared smile. A moment of fraternity relieving the tension. Dean nodded again, taking a deep breath and gathering himself. “Okay.”

* * *

It was slow going, getting Dean into the house on his own two feet. Gabriel’s inhuman strength took most of the weight, while Sam’s greater height provided guiding leverage, but it was still difficult. Dean wanted to move faster than he could, pushing the limits of a body that was still attempting to remember how to function. By the time they made it inside, Dean was exhausted, muscles screaming in pain and tears he couldn’t stop leaking from his eyes in response.

At that point, Sam ignored his brother’s machismo, and pretty much everything else, picked him up and carried Dean into the bathroom.

Gabriel left them be while Sam drew a warm bath, scenting it with verbena and lavender. It occurred to Sam that he wasn’t sure why the archangel would, since Dean might actually want him around so soon after his resurrection; his brother might have questions and Sam had easily half a dozen. But as he helped Dean out of his clothes and into the sunken tub, stripping himself down to his boxers before submerging with Dean, Dean’s hands wrapped around Sam’s arms in a tight, steadying grip and Sam started to think he could guess the answer.

“It’s okay, Dean,” Sam murmured, reaching for the soft cloth and Ivory soap he’d placed beside the tub. “I’m right here… I’m not going anywhere.”

Weakness irritated Dean. It irritated Sam too and he knew it, but Dean had always allowed Sam the luxury of it in his own mind. Dean had never felt he was allowed even that much; to be weak meant being unable to protect Sam, unable to help their father, unable to do all the things that made him happy: hunting and working on the Impala and having sex and roughhousing with Sam. He allowed that, because of the nature of their lives, Sam had and was going to see him in moments of weakness. It was inevitable.

But Gabriel seeing him this vulnerable wasn’t something Dean would accept easily. And Gabriel had likely known that, thus withdrawing. Sam was so grateful to his lover right now he could barely contain it.

Slow and gentle, Sam bathed his brother, washing away the residue of oils and honey and grave earth that had seeped through the linen during torrential rainstorms. Dean let him, steadying himself in Sam’s calm demeanor, letting the safety of his brother’s steadfast presence help him center again.

He’d made it out of Hell human. It had been close. He remembered all too well how close. But he’d done it… with the help of a blue-eyed, onyx-winged angel.

Sam’s fingers grazed something on his arm and Dean reflexively gasped, bringing him out of his thoughts and back to reality. “Dean… what is that?”

Glancing down, Dean looked at his left arm where Sam had touched it. Standing out in sharp relief, angry pink hypertrophic scars in the shape of a man’s right hand stared back at him. Memory surged through him, by far the most pleasant of any he carried since his death. “Castiel,” he murmured, unable to keep the name unspoken.

Blinking, Sam ran one finger along the skin just beneath the bottom curve of the palmprint. “Castiel… he’s the angel who…?”

“Yeah.” Dean focused, covering as quickly as he could. He didn’t want to talk about anything that had happened since his death… especially not the confusing welter of emotions that swelled at the thought of the angel that had rescued him from the Dark. “Yeah, he’s the guy… angel… whatever.”

Sam nodded, sensing Dean’s unwillingness to talk just now. It wasn’t really unexpected; he knew his elder brother very well. Having a long talk-therapy session about what he’d suffered in Hell wasn’t likely to ever be in the offing. “Does it hurt?” he asked instead, resuming his ablutions above Dean’s shoulder.

“No.” Dean shook his head, still gazing down at the scar for a moment before refocusing on Sammy. “Feels a little weird, but not painful.”

“Tell Gabriel about it,” Sam urged. “He’ll know if it means trouble or if it’s just a weird side effect.”

The soft way Sam said the archangel’s name sharpened Dean’s gaze. He knew his little brother even better than his little brother knew him. “Something happened between you two, didn’t it?”

For a moment, Sam didn’t meet Dean’s eyes, continuing to wash away the remains of the unguents used to prepare Dean’s body for burial. “He’s been helping me get control over the psychic stuff; figure out how to use it without tapping into all the dark side stuff Azazel wanted me to give in to at Cold Oak.”

“Meaning?” Dean’s viridian eyes were bright, alarmed and curious in the same instant. Much as he’d always feared what Sam’s powers meant, especially when they’d discovered their genesis, the idea of Gabriel being able to help Sam learn to use them for good was a tantalizing prospect. It would certainly give them an edge.

“Meaning… I can exorcise demons with my mind,” Sam replied slowly. “I can force them out of their hosts, back into Hell. We’ve been using the demons Lilith kept sending to watch this place as target practice.” Dean’s eyes went wide, but Sam kept going. “The telekinesis is getting easier to use, too; I’m getting some pretty fine control over it, enough to be able to actually direct it in a fight.”

“How bad has it been?” Dean demanded, grabbing Sam’s shoulder and pushing until his brother looked at him. “Sam?”

“There was an all-out a month ago,” Sam admitted. “Don’t know if it was Lilith’s lackeys or Lilith herself that ordered it, but they apparently got sick of waiting for Gabriel and me to come out. We’d been training since about a week after you… after we buried you. It was a short fight.” Sam tried not to shake, remembering the way fear had surged through him when the demons had swarmed Gabriel. He’d blasted them away from his lover like toy soldiers piled on top of a firecracker without a second thought.

“He’s a real pistol in a knock-down drag-out,” Gabriel commented. Dean looked up to see the archangel stepping back into the bathroom, coming to a stop behind Dean’s head and sitting cross-legged on the tiles. The archangel was bare to the waist, clad only in soft cotton pants of midnight sapphire. “Pass the shampoo, Sammy; I’ll do his hair.”

Dean grabbed Sam’s wrist when Sam did as the archangel asked without bothering to protest the nickname. “You’re doing him, aren’t you?” he asked directly, not letting Sam avoid his eyes.

Sam blushed crimson, but he wouldn’t look away. “Is that a problem?” he challenged back.

Gabriel waited, still as a stone, while Dean obviously debated whether or not it really was an issue. There was every possibility that the elder hunter might have one, considering what had passed between he and Gabriel the night Dean had died. That, like many other things, was something he hadn’t told Sam in the last few months. It was a private matter, he liked to think, and had nothing to do with his feelings for the younger hunter.

Whatever went through Dean’s mind, he obviously came to the same conclusion. “No… just want to know what I’m dealing with, is all. How long’ve I been gone?”

“One hundred thirty-nine days,” Sam answered, completing the pass of the shampoo bottle to Gabriel now that Dean had released his arm. “Four months, two weeks and two days.”

Dean saw it more clearly this time, knew it for what it was. His expression went soft, understanding. Forgiving. “Sammy…”

“It was the only thing I could think of,” Sam confessed, pleading with Dean to understand. Even after all his reasoning, he’d spent the last four months quietly terrified that Dean wouldn’t. That Dean would hate him the way Sam would have hated anyone else that had taken Dean from him. “I couldn’t just let you get ripped to shreds, Dean. You’re my brother; I couldn’t let you die like that. You… I…”

Leaning forward, Dean bumped foreheads with Sam again. It was a weary gesture, but didn’t fail to bring a quiet sound from Sam’s throat. “You did what I would have, things were reversed, Sammy,” Dean told him quietly. “I’m a little pissed at Lover Boy back there for snitching on me… but you did what I couldn’t ask anybody to do, Sammy. You did what was right. We’re okay.”

Sam caught his breath, caught his brother in a fierce hug, tried to keep back the tears of relief that threatened. Dean was alive. Dean was here and alive and forgave him for killing him because it was the clean death his brother had deserved. It was going to be all right.

Gabriel watched them with tears unshed in his golden eyes, wishing with all of his grace that a scene like this was even possible between Michael and Lucifer anymore. Knowing that it was probably impossible, but wishing all the same.

The rest of Dean’s bath was finished without fanfare, both Sam and Gabriel taking care to scrub away all traces of death and let Dean feel clean and human again. Helping him from the bath, Gabriel led the way while Sam guided his brother back into the bedroom and into the bed, joining the humans only when Sam silently asked with huge hazel eyes.

Dean blinked as he found himself sandwiched between warm Sasquatch and even warmer archangel, Sam’s chin tucked against his shoulder and Gabriel gazing intently at the handprint scar on his left deltoid. “I think I can sleep without any help, you guys.”

“Screw you, jerk.” Sam’s voice lacked any trace of venom, was almost resigned to the pattern they were following. “I want you both close right now and I don’t give a damn.”

“Bitch.” The reply was automatic, but it made Dean smile all the same. “You two get frisky and I’m bailing if I gotta crawl out.”

“I think we can control ourselves for one night.” Gabriel reached up, brushing two fingers over Dean’s temple in a soothing gesture. “Sleep, Dean. We’ll be right here.”

Without a sound, Dean drifted off in response to the whisper of grace magic. Sam cradled him, spooned Dean tightly against his longer body, silent tears of gratitude falling from his hazel eyes. Gabriel stayed, warding off the nightmares that might have disturbed the healing sleep Dean needed, leaning up every so often to kiss his lover’s tears away.

* * *

Both humans were finally asleep, exhausted and emotionally drained. Gabriel stayed for hours, comforted by their warmth and scent and weight. More than anything, he wanted to just hide these beautiful men away, to keep them safe. If he kept them beyond his brothers’ reach, the world couldn’t end. Or if it could, he wouldn’t be alone when it did. And he had been alone for a very, very long time.

But it meant living in a gilded cage, glorious but still confining. These brothers wouldn’t allow that… wouldn’t want to live that way. And, in truth, Gabriel had no desire to continue this way. He had hidden for longer than he’d anticipated, could probably keep hiding indefinitely. But he had outworn Loki’s mask. The effect Sam had on him had proven that.

When both Winchesters were deep in their dreams, Gabriel left the house. “Castiel… I know you’re here, little brother.”

A flutter of wings to his left, and Gabriel turned to see his brother standing there. The first angel to touch ground near him in fifteen hundred years. His brother’s vessel was young to his eyes; not much older than the Winchesters. The raven hair was wavy and mussed, the round face and strong jaw likely far less serious when the human they’d been sculpted for was in control of the body. But the eyes…

Gabriel couldn’t help smiling a little to see them. When angels had wrought their own mortal forms, Castiel’s eyes had been the same grace intense lapis blue. Whether by accident or design, whenever Castiel took a human vessel, their eyes were always the same shade.

“Gabriel.” There was wonder in that gravelly voice, a co-mingling of respect and fear and love and admiration and subservience, topped off with just a hint of caution. “You are still alive.”

“Surprise?” Gabriel gauged his brother, extended his senses just a little further than he had before he came outside. After that bout a month ago, demons were unwilling to continue laying siege to this haven, and his senses detected no other angels beyond Castiel, either. “Although the real surprise here is that you haven’t reported my survival to Anael… or even to Michael himself.”

“What makes you think I haven’t?” Castiel maintained a careful distance, trying to gauge his brother’s potential moves. It had been beyond shocking to discover that Gabriel was not only alive, but that he had sealed the Righteous Man’s grave with his own sigil for protection.

Gabriel’s smile turned almost condescending. “Castiel… please. I might have been out of the game for a while, but don’t make the mistake of thinking I’ve gone stupid. You’re alone. If you’d reported it to Anael, she’d be here with Uriel on her other flank. And if you’d told Michael, there’d be at least three garrisons here screaming for my pinions.”

“Your survival would be reason for great celebration among the Host,” Castiel observed. “Especially since the First Seal has been broken. The First of Us would no doubt be overjoyed at your return.”

“Too bad I’m not coming, then.” Castiel’s eyes widened, mouth setting in an angry line, and Gabriel shook his head. “Castiel, you’re a good soldier. Always have been. But you’re gonna have to think outside this Schrödinger’s cat box we’re in the middle of if you want your mate to survive what’s coming.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Castiel refused to take a defensive step back as Gabriel paced nearer, feeling the edge of his sword hilt at his vessel’s fingertips.

“You think that just because that mark hasn’t been seen since the Grigori walked the Earth, I wouldn’t know what it means?” Gabriel’s voice was low, understanding and warning in equal measure. “The boy feels it already, Castiel. He doesn’t know what it means yet, but he feels it. You won’t be able to stay away from him, because even with _your_ self-control, sooner or later the boy will call you to him. And you’ll go, because you won’t be able to stop yourself.”

“He has work to do,” Castiel protested. “Only he can end what’s begun; we both know that. He is not for me to claim even if it would be allowed.”

A shake of his head, and Gabriel chuckled softly. “Oh, brother… you already have. Not completely, which is probably why you’re still alive. But he’s yours to claim. And we both also know that not even you can resist that forever.”

Castiel remained perfectly still, carefully assessing his elder brother. “You’ve changed,” he observed finally. “You’re not the same archangel that once stood at the Father’s Left Hand.”

“You’re not wrong.” Gabriel sighed, resigning himself to the idea that Castiel wouldn’t be easy to convince. The angel took stubborn to new levels even among seraphim; he and Dean were well matched. “Cards on the table, bro? I’m not helping Mike. I’m not helping Luci. I’m not taking sides against either of them and there’s nothing even Father can do, short of Commanding me, that will change my mind on that score.”

“Then you intend to remain neutral in this war?” Castiel asked, his head tilting under the weight of considering such a possibility.

“No.” Gabriel gestured, pointing back to his haven with two fingers. “I’m on _their_ side. I’m on the side of two innocent sons of Edom who want nothing more from this life than to keep what little family Fate has left them intact. The Vessels aren’t going to be available to just bend over for Michael and Lucifer when this bullshit finally comes to a head.” Castiel startled again, and Gabriel’s smile turned mocking. “You didn’t know, did you? Michael’s keeping secrets from the troops; not really surprising.”

“Dean and Sam Winchester are the Vessels?” Castiel repeated. A feeling that might have been described by a human as nausea set up in his vessel’s stomach at the thought.

“And they’re under _my_ protection,” Gabriel insisted. “I’ll tell you what, Castiel: I’ll be generous here and let you have access to your half-claimed mate. He already knows exactly what’s at stake; I told both brothers before Dean went to Hell; so it won’t do them any harm for you to be around. Might even do you some good. But the others had better give me a wide berth unless they’re prepared to come with overwhelming force against me.”

“You are courting open civil war among the Host,” Castiel hissed. “You know full well that there will be many that would follow you willingly, regardless of what’s happening. At a time like this, such a thing could be catastrophic.”

“I’m willing to take that chance.”

“For the sake of two humans who would be granted Paradise as a reward for their sacrifice?” Castiel sneered. “This place has become more Hell than Heaven, when it was always meant to balance the two. You cannot pretend not to know that, nor to believe they wouldn’t be happier once they have been granted their peace.”

Gabriel’s smile turned just a little sad. “Castiel… you took the Oath, just as I did. And this place was always meant to be theirs. Heaven and Hell are shaped for humans based on this reality. Father made it for them. You cannot expect them not to defend it, no matter what rewards are promised them beyond this plane.”

“What can possibly have induced you to consider this?” Castiel’s brow furrowed, his eyes narrowing incredulously. “You are spurning both Heaven and Hell… it’s madness, Gabriel.”

“No, Castiel.” Gabriel’s smile turned even sadder, sorrow for his brother flickering in warm amber eyes. “It’s love… which is quite a lot madder than that.” Stepping back, Gabriel elected to give Castiel time to think things over. “As I said, Castiel: I won’t deny you access to Dean. It would be cruel to Dean even if I believed it would do more harm than good. But _just_ you. And if you do decide to run and tell big brother about me; which I rather doubt will be a secret from him much longer anyway; you tell him this: he and Luci aren’t having their little bitchfight wearing the Winchesters’ skins. They want these boys so bad? They’re gonna need to go through me. In the Name of the Father, I have taken the Vessels into my protection, and I will not Yield.”

“You have likely signed your own death warrant,” Castiel told him gravely, something like sadness in his own eyes.

“When you get to know Dean on this level of reality, you might understand why.” Gabriel stepped back again. “Go away, Castiel. You can see your mate when we leave this place. Not before.”

For a long moment, Castiel gazed at him, serious lapis eyes boring holes in the archangel as if seeking answers in the core of his grace. Gabriel stood his ground, concealing nothing, letting Castiel take the measure of his resolve.

The younger seraph vanished in a flutter of wings.

A long sigh of relief left Gabriel before he returned to the house, instantly seeking the nest and the Winchesters. Sam was still asleep, but Dean had woken; probably in response to Castiel’s presence. “He was here, wasn’t he?”

Gabriel nodded as he slid in against Dean again, reaching one arm across Dean’s body to stroke Sam’s hip. “You felt him, I take it?” Dean nodded. “Yes, he was. This isn’t going to be easy for him, Dean. He’s spent his entire existence following Heaven’s orders. I don’t know what he’s going to do.”

Dean’s hand shifted to cover the one Sam had splayed over his stomach, his thumb brushing along the curve of Sam’s wrist. “I don’t know… Gabe, it’s all jumbled around. Things I remember about that moment before he put me back… they don’t make sense.”

“They will.” Gabriel snuggled in, listening to the heartbeat of the hunter against him. To the echoing drum of Sam’s heart just beyond. “Just leave it be for now and rest, Dean. This war’s far from over.”

Nodding drowsily, Dean relaxed into sleep again.

Resting against him, Gabriel concentrated on their joined heartbeats, on the warmth of their living flesh. These two, created to be mere echoes of his brothers for their ultimate showdown, surpassed those brothers in so many ways. It was going to be a long, hard, horrible fight, one Gabriel wasn’t certain any of them would survive.

The sheer enormity of what they were about to do shook him to the core. They were going to challenge Fate Herself for the right to shape the future. A fight that was likely impossible to win.

Sam murmured in his sleep, the hand that wasn’t wrapped around Dean reaching for Gabriel. Gabriel let Sam find him; let his gorgeous, beloved hunter take comfort from contact with both brother and lover.

_He’s worth it. They both are._

The dawn would bring hard discussions, harder choices. Impossible decisions. But for now, they were still safe.

Gabriel closed his eyes and let himself rest. They were all going to need it.

 

_~Fin_


End file.
